Glossary

Card Conservation Glossary

 === A ===

 ; Acetone : A strong solvent -

Unsafe: Do not use on cards

 ; Alteration : Material added to or removed from the card, or the original surface irreversibly changed — trimming, rebacking, recolor, scratch fill, corner rebuild, heavy pressing. Tier III on the Conservation Tech Sheet. High likelihood of traces; disclose before transfer. Alteration is not fraud in itself — selling altered work as untouched is.

 === C ===
 ; Centering : The alignment of the printed image within the card borders
 ; Conservation : Work that neither adds material to a card nor removes it, and leaves no detectable trace. Spans preventive care (storage, climate, handling, UV protection) and gentle active treatment (dry clean, distilled water clean, light humidification, low-pressure cold press). Tier I on the Conservation Tech Sheet — grader-safe, no disclosure obligation. Also used as the name of the discipline as a whole, which covers all three tiers.
 ; Creep : Slow, time-dependent deformation under a sustained load. How a card in a leaning stack or tight binder page gradually takes a permanent set, and why the book-press method takes weeks. See Why Cards Warp.

 === D ===
 ; Delamination : Separation of the layers in a laminated card - paper body, adhesive, holographic film, ink, and coating. Usually the film or coating failing under heat or pressure that the paper underneath could tolerate. See Layer Delamination.
 ; Distilled Water : Purified water safe for card cleaning. Cleaning with it (water clean) is tier I; see Standards of Practice.

 === E ===
 ; Elastic deformation : Bending that fully reverses when the load is removed. A humidity curl on a holo is elastic - nothing is broken, and stable storage alone will flatten it. See Why Cards Warp.

 === G ===
 ; Grading : Professional assessment of card condition (PSA, BGS, CGC)

 === H ===
 ; Humidity Chamber : Controlled environment for card relaxation before pressing

 === P ===
 ; Permanent set : The shape a material keeps after a load past its yield point is removed. A warped card that holds the same shape in any environment has a permanent set; this is what pressing removes. See Why Cards Warp.
 ; Plastic deformation : Bending past the yield point, where paper fibers slide past one another and the card only partially recovers when released. Set warps, soft corner bends, and factory warp are plastic. See Why Cards Warp.
 ; Plasticizer : A substance that makes a material more pliable by loosening its internal bonds. In paper, water is the plasticizer - which is why humidification precedes every pressing method.
 ; Pressing : Technique to flatten warped or bent cards. Tier depends on intensity and on method. A low-pressure cold press is conservation, medium is restoration, heavy is alteration; a heat press starts at tier II at its gentlest and has no conservation setting. Rosin press is tier III always.

 === R ===
 ; Restoration : Work that adds and removes nothing integral, but could leave traces detectable under loupe or UV — heat press, humidity stack, steam, tool work, solvent clean, gloss polish, scratch reduction, or any tier I method pushed past gentle. Tier II on the Conservation Tech Sheet — disclose on sale.

 === S ===
 ; Strain : Change in shape relative to original size - how much a card actually deforms under a load.
 ; Stress : Force applied per unit area - how hard a card is being pushed or pulled. Plotted against strain it gives the stress-strain curve that explains which warps are fixable. See Why Cards Warp.

 === Y ===
 ; Yield point : The stress beyond which deformation becomes permanent. Heat and humidity lower a card's yield point, which is what lets a press flatten a set warp without cracking the card. See Why Cards Warp.