General Forum

https://www.facebook.com/Gonewiththestain1

Don't know how well the link will work, but if you scroll down a bit, he claims to have restored a 1956 Mantle by removing the wrinkle. 
Why am I leary....?

v3

I've heard similar for fixing box creases for old cereal or video games boxes (heard of tricks involving ironing the box under a cloth). There is some honest-to-good restorative practices that in some cases aren't really altering the integrity of the item (i.e. trimming/shaving/chemical treatments) but there are inherent risks in undertaking any of these processes of course. 

I would be scared to death to try it. I have in my mind an image of a guy in an apron with an iron and ironing board.

There's a guy in one of the vintage baseball facebook groups I'm in that has removed writing/stains and sent in for grading and got higher grades. He only does it on his own cards though (i would be scared to deal with someone else's card too).

I have always said "If it sounds too good to be true..." but I may look into this some more. I have some very easily replaceable cards I may try with one day.

I have heard of this before. It has to do with the heat applied correctly to lift that section of the card.

Simple solution.  Just put a crease in a few 1987 Topps commons and see if it works to fix them.  "Too good to be true" is always the case until it starts to become commonplace.  I wouldn't start out by risking a 56 Mantle though.

I wonder what the black light would reveal in these cases of card doctoring/altering.?

Mark 

Every case of "restoration" I've seen are things that can be detected.  Couple examples:

Using a sharpie on the edge of a 71 Topps

Trimming the corners (which makes the card a little smaller)

Using a bleach compound to remove stains which you can smell on the card even years later or can tell because the colors are slightly faded from another of the same year.

Even rebuilding corners with a compound which you can tell if you look very close or view under a black light.

I even saw one extreme case where part of a card was re-printed and glued to replace a missing section.

I've never actually seen anyone uncrease a card though.  I was reading up a little on that and how it is most commonly done with an iron and towel.  I have a couple 89 Donruss commons that were folded in half so I might experiment.

In sort of the other direction; I had a 1961 Yankees team signed ball, but it was all signed in pencil. I was affraid the signatures would rub off so I sprayed it with my archival artist fixative ( for the protection of pastel paintings). and it not only protected the names but made them darker and more readable.

As for ironing a card to remove a crease I'm not sure . it might lift a light pencil mark. I've lifted melted crayon fom a rug that way. The only thing ironing a crease might do is make the card stiffer thus maskig te crease. (did I just use the word "thus" in a sentance?)