Removing Sharpie ink from cards

[Isawa]

I recently purchased 4 Tundras from Revised for $30. The cards are in good playable condition but the borderes have been colored in with a  black Sharpie. I have two questions.

1) What would you say the value of these cards are? They are slightly played and the black ink around the borders is within the  lines. It does not pass over into the actual picture of the card.

2) Is there a chemical or an eraser that could possibly remove the Sharpie ink from the borders without damaging the cards too badly?

[Jank Golem]

Take a very soft eraser and lightly erase the sharpied area, tape off the borders so you can make sure you don't erase the rest of the card. If the sharpie is on the actual card face some of the area around it will have some whitening, since the borders are should be white in the first place you shouldn't be able to tell. The softer the eraser the less damage there will be to the card, but it will take more time to erase. Good Luck.

[unknown.root]

I have a foil mindslaver that has been proxied on the back of it, that I need to do something with.

And no i wasn't the moron who did it, however i couldn't say no to a free card thats playable in dark sleeves.

[ashiXIII]

In addition to the eraser, you could tape off the border and use acetone to remove the Sharpie. If you try this, be very careful because it'll remove the ink from the card almost on contact. Your taping has to be exact.

[Harlequin]

I don't know that I would put tap down on the face of the card.  In my experiance having the acetone come in contact with the glue of the tape makes it stickier than normal.  Aslo it will kinda bleed under the taped. 

If the erraser doesnt work here's what I would do.

-- Get acetone, a percision metal ruler, some C-clamps, some sort of plasticy workmat, quetips, and a glass of water.
-- mix about 1 part water and 1 part acetone... the weaker the better.
-- put the workmat down on the table, and put the card near the edge of both the table and the mat
-- Clamp down the ruler to the table right alone the boarder.  The mat should provide enough upward pressure to create a decent "seal" with the ruler.
-- take the acetone mixture and the quetips, dip the quetip in and then blot it on a papertowl or something.  use the wet end to break up some ink and then use the dry end to soak it up.  If it doesn't work, add some more acetone to your mixture (to up the concentration)... and try again.

-- going slowly is key.  use a low concentration and keep switching from wet to dry... over and over and over.  eventually you should have a nice clean card.
-- Theoretically the more effort you put in, the better the card will look in the end.


> you might want to test this method on some other card first.  like make a "Sharpy Beta" out of a basic land or something to test out your concetration.  If you have it too high then it may bleed under the ruler.

[Hi-Val]

Try out Xylene or Napathalene, the former is known as Goof-Off and the latter is lighter fluid. Both will probably work on getting it up without damaging the ink. They're superior to acetone since they don't strip the coating off and they're better than alcohol because they contain no water. In any case, test it first and congrats on sacking 4 tundras for $30.

[orgcandman]

I don't know that I'd even bother risking damaging the rest of the card for it. Just play them like they are. If you're looking to resell, well...that's a different story.

In any case, test it first and congrats on sacking 4 tundras for $30.

QFT

[M.Solymossy]

I had to pay 80 for my set of tundras =-(.  They're not sharpied.  I woulda taken 4 tundras sharpied for 30 dollars ANY day.