The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
Today’s Question: QotD: When applying the ship of Theseus idea to Pokemon cards, how much of the card can be replaced before it is no longer seen as valuable?
Helpful considerations: Original cardstock? Ink from the same timeframe? Design and layout original? No replication at all?
I am against restoration of cards so I dont see why this would be all that different in that aspect. I still would be interested in some cards so I guess they retain some value depending what they represent. So to the question asked, maybe 20% if it is physical damage, 50-60% if its some kind of restoration of physical parameters as long as the same materials are used.
Personally, I’d rather have a damaged card then a “restored” one. Not everyone probably feels that way, but at least to me the value is in the original card.
For me its when I cant see the art. Seeing the pokemon itself makes me enjoy it. Id wager this one is very subjective though. I had a guy once tell me “Depends… a ship really becomes new when theres a new captain”, so maybe a pokemon card becomes brand new again when it gets a new owner.
Now we’re talking Ship of Theseus. The closest man ever came to building a living machine, arguably the most beautiful moving object to ever exist.
Despite the massive global impact and mythical status of Sir Nigel Gresley’s A1 and A3 class of locomtives, she is the only one of her kind left in the world. And she’s been worked a lot in her 102 years on the planet. In fact, she’s been worked all over the planet.
She has been restored, rebuilt, refurbished, restyled, you name it. Few original parts are left. I don’t think her spirit would leave her even if she was rebuilt down to the last nail.
100% this, again just personal opinion but there’s no satisfaction in owning a ‘minter’ version of a card if non-original means have been used to improve its condition or appearance. Damage or wear might not be optimal for a collector from an aesthetic point of view, but at the very least it adds to the history of that individual card, and I guess from a consumer perspective usually comes with a friendlier price tag! (Which is great for me else my WTB thread would not exist LOL)
Yeah for me personally, it’s not just the actual art on the card that matters, especially since art has been reprinted in different sets. I think honestly the only part of the card I’d accept being restored is maybe the edges. Other than that I think as a whole a Pokemon card can’t be compared to skip of theseus as a ship is made of many parts and pieces but I see a Pokemon card as just one piece. Sure, you could argue that the various print layers are different pieces but they are fused together in a way that it would be hard to seperate them without causing damage. Unlike a ship where a board can be replaced rather easily and won’t (in theory) affect the integrity of the rest of the ship
Reasonable damage is no issue for me and majority of my collection anyway is concentrating on clean front in binder but any kind of altering is a no go. So as long as it’s authentic, original and in one piece it can have value for me but it’s downhill from that if any factor is removed
Greek philosophers absolutely destroyed! Heh jk ofc but that is some cool info about that locomotive.
I don’t know much about card restoration but for coins I generally agree that at a certain age (and occasionally damage), cleaning is a necessity. However for most modern era coins almost any type of cleaning is considered a big no-no among collectors, and will get you a “cleaned” label if graded.
I mostly consider restoration outside those things an “inauthentic/altered” item… less than the original. Yet when the thing stops being a good representation of the original, but can be salvaged, restoration is a good option to have. It needs to be made known in giant letters if resold ofc.
Interesting facts about the coin collecting hobby thanks for sharing, to me altering cards is like getting a 1960 mustang that has a some missing parts then buying those parts new so that it can run then saying it is an original it’s now changed, even though it’s still the same mustang it’s altered because of those new parts. It’s the same thing with cards the moment I try to trim imperfections or polish the card it’s now altered and won’t be the same
But what if you replace those parts with parts from another original mustang? Or what if the factory making parts still is producing the same exact part made the same way? Would it still not be an original mustang?
There are different cert numbers on parts even if it’s small there are things that you can notice are different how would you splice together two cards without someone noticing?
Well the original question was inspired by the idea of prototypes being printed currently but if they werent able to be properly dated by printing details, at what point would it matter if theoretically they used materials and methods from 90s. For example on a card with an ink obstruction error, reprint the font to fill any mistaken parts but produce it identically to official methods, is it still valuable?
So nobody is mislead, by old that means like, ancient, came outta the ground covered in dirt level filth.
Just in case anyone comes into a coin collection or something from Gramps… Don’t clean em!
I understand where you’re coming from, that’s fair. Saw an interesting video where it drew a comparison between video game remasters and the various restorations of “The Last Supper”. Seems pretentious but the dudes pretty smart.
Basically, it started deteriorating almost immediately. After a few decades of peeling and flaking, was that still “the original”? They cut out part for a door, so if you didn’t see it before that, can you say you’ve seen “The Last Supper”?
It was an interesting perspective on restoring/remaking original things and how to view them. Some day the things needed to maintain certain cars, make certain collectibles will be gone(or impractical to imitate), and some might become important to history. Never know how they’ll treat stuff.
Ok I get what your saying now, I mean value wise I think the value is just what someone decides but I definitely think that altered cards should be labeled in some way to inform people that the card has been altered. I mean look at the Wagner card for a while nobody knew that it had been trimmed and I’m sure a lot of the buyers weren’t informed of it. If a card has parts in it it’s different. Also responding to @Whis_Cash. I didn’t mean to come off like I’m against cleaning, cleaning is great in my opinion it’s when people add onto a card by adding product that wasn’t originally there that bugs me. Maintaining paintings is different you kinda have to do that to make sure it doesn’t die and referring back to ship Theseus it might be new but still is a ship that goes by a name. The problem I have with restoring cards is we have ways to keep them safe and most of these cards aren’t at risk of falling apart the problem I have is when people alter cards to sell without telling the client that it’s been changed even if it was for the better
I don’t think you came off that way, just had to add that disclaimer about coins and certainly wasn’t trying to debate anyone into changing any opinions! Also saw it as a way to mention that vid that made me reconsider the way I look at some things. Def agree there can be a ton of issues with alterations.
I do music and am a bit of purist. Kinda turn my nose up at anything but the original, sometimes not even live versions, so I get ya on the sentiment
