WHERE I DISAGREE
These cards are little works of art.
I'm not hanging a Prizm next to a Monet. You get the idea. If you loved the night, you'd take care of the picture.
A card is a snapshot. A sport, a player, a night that mattered to somebody. You'd dust a picture on the wall without calling it a restoration. Same job here. The grading companies count any paste as an alteration, and that's their book to write — wipe the card clean before you submit it. Soaking, trimming, pressing, packing a groove: different work entirely, and none of it happens at our bench.
WHERE I STOP
I could make the scratch disappear.
Two years at a bench and you learn things. Some of what I picked up along the way I don't use. If I wanted a deep scratch gone — gone, not lightened, not softened under a lamp — I could get there. The chemicals are on the shelf and the methods aren't a secret. I've read the same data sheets as everybody else selling a jar.
I don't, because past a certain point it stops being my card.
I have scars. I don't look at them as imperfections. They are part of the story of me and how I got to this day. I think about cards close to the same way. For the most part, it is what it is. A dinged corner and a print line are where that card has been.
So Banly's is the absolute most I would put on a card of my own without feeling like I was covering up its story. That turned out to be the same place all-natural runs out. Six ingredients you can name, doing everything they can honestly do, and then stopping. Two ceilings, and they came in at the same height. The years were mostly spent finding it.
BEFORE YOU BUY
Coated cards only.
Chrome, Prizm, Optic, Mosaic, refractors — anything with a sealed gloss on it. Paper, matte, worn or peeling stock, and autographs are a no. Run it on a base card of the same stock before you touch one you care about. It cleans, and it may take a light scratch. It will not un-print a factory line.
WHAT WE MIX
Raw ingredients. Here they are.
Pellets, flakes, oil, pure aloe, liquid soft gels, powder. No premix. The amounts stay in the shop, the names are all yours.
01
Beeswax
Pellets · Makes it a paste
We buy it in pellets and melt it down ourselves. Soft wax. That's most of what you're spreading. Wipe it off or leave a little — it stays soft. Doesn't dry hard.
02
Carnauba wax
Flakes · The harder wax
Comes in flakes. Palm wax. Same idea as the beeswax. We've wiped this off cards that sat in a penny sleeve for years.
03
Olive oil
Oil · So it spreads
Just the oil. Keeps the tin from turning into a brick. Helps with fingerprints. It isn't meant to sit on the card after.
04
Aloe vera
Pure · Helps it glide
Pure aloe. A pea-size should move. Let the card dry before you sleeve it.
05
Lecithin
Liquid soft gels · Keeps it mixed
We use the liquid soft gels. Stops the wax and oil from separating. That's it. Not glamorous.
06
Diatomaceous earth
Powder · Light polish
The powder. It's in there so a light scratch or a small blemish has a chance of coming off. Sometimes it does. We're not guaranteeing your card, and it isn't in there to fill a print line.
THE OBVIOUS QUESTION
So what stops you from making it yourself?
Nothing, and that's fine. Six names is not a recipe. The amounts, the order they go in, the heat, and how long it sits before it sets are the part that took the two years. That part stays in the shop.
The proportion that matters most is the diatomaceous earth. It's a mild abrasive. Get that ratio wrong and you haven't made card paste, you've made a cutting compound — the exact thing we tell people to keep off a card coat. Finding the amount that cleans without cutting is most of what those two years were, and the testing got done on our cards instead of yours.
If you work it out on your own, good. Go make it. We'd rather a collector know what's sitting on his card than buy a jar that won't say. Most folks won't bother, because the smallest bag of each of the six costs more than the kit does and leaves you with a lifetime supply of carnauba flakes.
WHAT IT CAN DO
Get fingerprints and haze off
Chrome, Prizm, Optic, Mosaic, refractors. The coated stuff.
Sometimes a light scratch or a little blemish
That's the diatomaceous earth, with the foam. Some cards, yeah. Some, no. Not a guarantee.
A little shine back
Mostly from wiping. Do a dry cloth first — you'd be surprised.
Tell you the ingredients
Beeswax pellets, carnauba flakes, olive oil, pure aloe, lecithin in liquid soft gels, diatomaceous earth powder. Raw stock. We mix it, we keep the amounts, and you get every name.
Wipe it off later
Even years later, out of a penny sleeve. It stays soft. That's how you know it isn't silicone.
WHAT IT CAN'T
Fix print lines or factory lines
Those are in the coat. Filling the groove isn't fixing the card.
Promise a grade, block UV, or lift your particular mark
Nothing in here filters UV. Every card takes the paste differently, so we won't call yours ahead of time. Anything going out for grading gets wiped clean first.
Paper, matte, or autographs
Plastic-coated cards only. We don't soak, trim, or whiten edges.
Put silicone or acrylic on a card
Those stay. They shouldn't be anywhere near a collection.