Hi everyone, it is very common, as we all know, for vintage cards to
appear after being removed from scrapbooks. Assuming the card is beautiful otherwise, what is the maximum grade the card will receive (from PSA say), with the back damage/glue residue on the back?

Grade wise is there any difference b/w soaking or just simply tearing the scrapbook paper off?

How does it all change if the card is VG otherwise? (Some rounding of corners) plus the damage to the back?

I would like to hear opinions.

Thanks,
R Haynes

You can still get a PSA2 with back damage.

Hi,

The max you will get from removing any cards from a scarp book would be a PSA 3 - you will get nothing higher than that. The reason is that you will have paper-loss/damage to the back of the card. When there is ANY paper-loss PSA will automaticly give you a PSA 2 or 3 if you are lucky - regardless of how sharp the corners are or how nice the centering is.

Too bad they are all in a scarpbook!

Paul

I guess we are talking here about a personal experience.
So...

1. A joke from KSA. Removed from an album but still ExMt



2. A joke from Beckett This card was graded as Good but when I sent a much nicer card to them with just a little glue stain on 1 corner of its back, it was returned as ungradeable (fortunatelly it was 1954 Parkhurst G.Howe and I easily got $175 for that card later)



3. PSA reality. Beautiful ExMt front, back is covered (hard to see) with a glue. I guess I should have asked Gerry how to remove it.

Elmar, which Gerry are you referring to?

Would everyone consider removing glue as an alteration to the card?
I would think that it would not be possible to remove all traces of the glue and
not do some other damage to the back.

R Haynes

I am not a purist when collecting especially when something is tough. For you avid fans/collectors with a limited budget this is an affordable way to acquire a Vezina, Morenz, Shore or whoever is your pre-war fancy.

I have seen quite a few scrapbooks over the years and usually I only get to see the contents after they had been removed.

One guy once showed me his childhood scrapbook of 52 high series and 53 Topps baseball cards. There were some very attractive and tough cards in it. High gloss, sound corners. Then he showed me his 52 Topps Mantle. Unfortunately he had tried to pull it out and had paper loss on back at the card number. I could have cried because that was a very expensive pull indeed.

In any event something I suggested which he did do with the balance afterwards was to take the album to the local archives. They were able to do a decent job removing the cards in one piece without severe staining.

Of all the mysteries of grading, I'd say that paper loss seems to be the most vexing. A 2 or 3 is a good estimate of what an otherwise nice card would grade if there's modest paper loss on back, but there's certainly no hard and fast standards for paper loss. I've seen nominal back scuffing on 5's and even 6's and pretty significant frontal chipping or scuffing on 4's and 5's. Ya just never know.

As for the scrapbook issue, I've only tried it once (and I screwed up the drying step) but by most accounts one can soak pages in distilled water, remove the attached paper, carefully blot the cards dry and end up with a reasonably clean card whose grade will not be impacted.

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