So how do you define card cleaning and altering cards? What constitutes an alteration? Which types of card cleaning/altering are moral? Are all types immoral?
Why? Please add your thoughts!
Potential Hypotheticals:
De-warping a cupped card
Flattening cards to reduce the appearance of indentations
Rehydrating cards to remove indentations
Pushing a slightly raised corner or edge downward
Cleaning dirt off of a card with a Q-tip or water
Removing a portion of a signature on a signed card
I don’t have a solid answer, but I like the idea that there is a difference between “cleaning” and “alteration.” The exact terminology for these is less important than the distinctions between the two.
“Cleaning” IMO refers to the usage of non-destructive or additive means to reduce/remove debris or environmental issues that has not significantly compromised the card’s condition. Under this, I would include methods like:
De-warping a cupped card
Cleaning dirt off of a card
Pressing cards to reduce the appearance of indentations
Pushing a raised corner or edge downward
The important thing with cleaning is that you are reversing some type of factory issue or minor environmental issue without compromising the integrity of the card. You aren’t adding any new material to the card, removing any original material from the card, or changing the physical dimensions of the card.
“Altering” IMO refers to the usage of products or techniques that are designed to conceal irreversible damage and degradation through adding or subtracting original material from the card. I would include the following methods under altering:
Removing a portion of a signature on a signed card
Adding polish to the holo surface/buffing out scratches
Trimming to reduce the appearance of edgewear
Recoloring to reduce the appearance of edgewear
The important thing with altering is that you are using a substance never intended to be used on a card in order to hide non-trivial damage that can’t be reversed. Using Kurt’s Kard Splooge on a holo doesn’t eliminate scratches, it fills them in with a foreign substance so the scratches are harder to see. Just like adding foreign materials to a card (recoloring, splooging holos) is altering, so is removing parts of the card with acetone or trimming.
I think PSA does a pretty good job with defining altering. While I originally viewed pressing indents as part of the alteration category, I think it’s hard to justify this being all that different from flattening a humidity-warped card that we do all the time. I don’t think my list is anywhere near definitive and I’d love to hear others thoughts.
I think the consensus on e4 was pretty unanimous around ‘card cleaning’. If any of the card is removed or if any material is added through the ‘card cleaning’ the card is altered. It’s pretty simple.
I agree for the most part, but I think with signatures, the signature itself is already an alteration (just one that is universally accepted as okay). Given this, so long as the solvent used to remove a portion of the signature doesn’t change the card itself, I probably wouldn’t lump it together with other things that physically alter a card (e.g. polish, trimming). It also might depend on the solvent you use: acetone is pretty harsh and might damage the integrity of the gloss layer, but ethanol may end up being relatively innocuous.
Also, altered cards also probably shouldn’t have intent to conceal built into the definition, as I think everyone would very likely consider this abomination an altered card:
I would also consider using humidity to mitigate indents as an okay form of “cleaning” or “altering.”
Another random thing to bring up: others on this forum have suggested using a bit of Windex to possibly clean dirt or oils off of cards. I think most people are okay with type of cleaning, but I thought it was relevant to this statement:
I know the quote is taken a bit out of context, as there was the latter half of the sentence about hiding damage, but I thought it was interesting that there are “foreign substances” that the community here does deem okay to use to clean cards.
The cards condition is dependent on how either you handled it or the previous owner did. Anything beyond that is cheating with the exception of a dust/dirt particle that you can flick off, or something that can be blown off.
This method is similar to trying to get your classic Nintendo games to work we all used to blow the cartridges to insert in the system hoping for it to work in the 80’s and 90’s.
When you start to mess with chemicals, it’s when things start to take a hard right turn and to me it’s just not natural and controversial.
This is the most comprehensive, nuanced and well reasoned approach that I have seen when it comes to the card cleaning controversy. Following fourthstar’s logic, I propose that all acts of card cleaning can fall into one of two distinct categories, Alteration vs Restoration.
Alteration
Chemically altering cards, often with the intention to conceal nontrivial damage and increase the value of the card. Alterations can be deceptive and damage the card being altered.
Holo scratch filling agents
using sharpie to color in white chips
Restoration
Restorations are often non-invasive, physical card cleaning techniques used to restore a card to its original visual appeal. This can include:
In my mind shoving a card in a book to flatten it or using a cloth to wipe some smudges off is ok but when you start adding stuff or getting scientific it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I dont care what others do with their stuff but i dont want to buy anything like that and my cards will be just fine without. Id say anything that goes beyond a wipe or a book is altering. Again its personal opinion, i dont mean to offend anyone.
I’m ok with properly removing humidity bends (unlike indents, nicks and whitening where the cardstock is visibly deformed.) I’m also ok with removing lightly adhering specks without the use of liquids.
My preference for self-pulled cards has always been directly tied to this wholly unpleasant (although necessary) subject.
Thanks for your post! However, you did bring up signatures: would we still consider the card “altered” if instead of a dick, a Pokemon artist wrote their name on the card?
I think intent to conceal is an important part of the “alteration” definition, because the whole point of altering is to make a card appear like it’s undamaged when in fact it’s not. The intent of a signature isn’t to conceal damage to a card, and the same is true with a crudely drawn penis on a Persian.
With regard to the Windex, I don’t know what that actually does to a card. Is it removing gloss like acetone, or is it just facilitating the removal of dirt and other surface imperfections that haven’t actually damaged the card? I agree that the level of “damage” actually done to a card is the key factor here.
The biggest issue in card collecting is cutting and trimming. Graders are often expected to measure the card if its even a tiny bit off. There are legit factory cut cards that get flagged as “short” and returned ungraded because it came in less than a MM off straight from factory
Thankfully, in Pokemon this is a very minor issue because we have rounded corners. In theory you could still use sandpaper but it would definitely be noticed at the curves
Ive seen ppl use sharpy markers for very old beat up cards with absolutely terrible whitening. If its for your own personal collection i say who cares but if the intent is to grade or sell this will easily be discovered. There is no smooth transition, so there will be color contrast and saturation issues. Additionally, markers bleed so if your using it at an edge there will often be blue color on the sides which should be white. So i think its something uncommon and very hard to get away with
As far as substances or chemicals to the actual face of the card, im not aware of anything other than wax for holos? There might be actual cleaning agents for the card as well but im not to versed on what ppl actually would use for this. I think its a slippery slope here
The biggest issue ive noticed is ppl getting signatures on their cards to cover up a flaw or print line. I dont value signatures personally, but ive seen my share of cards where ppl clearly had the intent to do this.
I cant necessarily say its foul if the signature is natural and thats where the signer would draw it in anyways but it would bother me if i was a buyer of the card
Personally, I would consider any card with marker/writing on it altered, whether it be the signature of a well-known person, a crudely drawn penis, or some kid writing their name on the card. None of these were originally present on the card as it came out of the factory.
However, I did just learn (only today, by sheer coincidence) that PSA does seem to have a separate qualifier for things like this (the non-signature additions, I mean): MK (or marked). So they do seem to differentiate between “marked” and “altered” cards, with the latter basically matching your definition of altered cards. So, in the context of grading and in the greater discussion of cleaning vs altering, I think I’d agree with your definition. Although I’d probably still recognize removing part of a signature as highly distasteful, but not quite egregious enough to be considered altering.
I was a bit surprised when I saw Windex being suggested for cleaning cards. I’m guessing it’s pretty safe and only really removes things like dirt and fingerprint oils. Never tried it myself though to see if it damages the gloss or anything.
I’m ok with removing dents or fixing warped cards, gently cleaning the surface is ok too, but what I find truly disgusting is having chemicals on my cards. That’s definitely altering.
I hate this whole holo polishing/cream trend, it makes people paranoid, ruins enjoyment and buyers confidence.
For example, look at these cards on PWCC right now, are those subtle wiping traces (magneton especially, left side of the holo surface)?
Here is a video of the PSA’s President addressing the topic of card cleaning some months ago. (Link already starting on the topic)
Long story short; The main problem with card cleaning substances is that they can’t guarantee the card’s response to them after a long period of time. That’s basically the parameter for discarding/accepting cleaning methods, which makes total sense to me.
I recommend watching the whole thing for Graded Card collectors. There are a lot of interesting insights shared.
Maybe I have an unpopular opinion here. I view any restorative procedure as altering the card and immoral if not disclosed.
Cleaning [- i.e., the integrity of the card is not changed and chemicals are not added]
Using small amounts of water to clean a card
De-warping a humidity-induced cupped card
Altering [- i.e., restorative procedures]
Adding substances to the card’s surface for polishing
Buffing out scratches
Flattening cards to remove indentations
Pushing a slightly raised corner or edge downward
Recoloring
Removing ink from a signature
Restoring cardstock
Trimming edges/corners
If someone bought a PSA 6 with a binder dent and then pressed the card or rehydrated it to remove the binder dent, I would consider that altering the cardstock. Reversing damage like this should be considered restoration and therefore inappropriate in my opinion.
I think my post mentioned this above, but I originally thought like you did before I took a look at the logic of it. Let’s take the issue of humidity warps vs indent removal. In both cases you have a similar deformation in the card and use a similar process to restore the card to its original state. You’re putting something back the way it was, without adding anything to the card or removing anything from it.
The way @pfm has put it in the past has resonated with me: if it’s impossible to tell if a flaw has been restored, we can’t call anything done to it an “alteration.” For example, while you could theoretically verify the presence of Kard Splooge, trimming, signature removal, or recoloring, verifying warp or indent removal is harder. If a restored card is physically identical to an unrestored card, how are grading companies supposed to tell if a card has been altered/restored?
Currently it seems like grading companies are really only aware of the classic methods of alteration and are not aware of the newer ones. It doesn’t sit right to me that someone can put an indented card in a Humidifier-Presser 8000 and fix it right up, but if they’re able to get rid of the indent without appreciably changing the card, I can’t really call that “alteration.”
Perhaps a simple definition of alteration is any measurable restoration of a card, where cleaning is not measurable.
I appreciate the sentiment, but it doesn’t sit well with me. Whether it’s detectable or not, I view it as an alteration.
In the case of a warped card, the physical cardstock has not been damaged. In the case of an indent, the cardstock has been visibly compressed and therefore damaged. In my head, straightening a card that has been cupped from humidity is not removing damage, but un-denting a card would be.
Detection is another issue worth exploring as well. If something is done to a card, but it is not detectable by grading companies, has it been altered? I would say yes.
Let’s say that you purchased a shiny collector coin. It was cleaned with a special laser so that abrasions, chemical residue, or any signs of restoration were not detectable. Would it not be considered altered? Most coin collectors would consider it an important alteration, even if the current technology could not identify it as being altered.
In other words, limitations of current technology do not ameliorate the restoration. It happened, the collectible was altered, but we are none the wiser. That does not make the restoration acceptable, it makes us (the consumer; the grading company) woefully incompetent.
I would say your problem here is leaning too much into the definition of damaged. There isn’t really a functional difference between using a humidity treatment to alter a dent vs using a humidity treatment to alter the card curvature.
If I smear chocolate on the card and let it dry, I have reduced the condition of the card or “damaged” it. But I can also use water to wipe it off back to the original condition.
As long as you aren’t removing material that is original to the card or adding something foreign on top of the card, I don’t have a problem with it. Which would imply any scratch-removal treatment is wrong because to remove a scratch you either have to fill it in or remove material around it. Maybe we can agree that stuff like pushing down the corners or humidity treatments are a bit sweaty and desperate, I wouldn’t be bothered if I bought a card that had this done.
I don’t disagree an indent should be considered damage. I question why draw a distinction with that word at all? Some damage, like a chocolate smear, is 100% reversible without compromising anything fundamental about the card.
Ironically, the reason you and others probably don’t consider a warped card “as damaged” is because it is “fixable” via humidity and pressure. Not sure why that courtesy isn’t applied to all types of things fixable by humidity or pressure.
