There are many inexpensive ways to buy cards since there are many, many more sellers than buyers. Plus, I always remember they are just cards and not a necessity, a can't lose philosophy that has served me well through the decades and prevented my wallet from being emptied out on a continuos basis. LOL
Here is a completely shocking alteration of cards that I never would have thought about. If a card is placed in a screw down holder and the screws are tightened too much the card may be made thinner and grading services will consider it altered!! WT$???? Since screw downs were standard for decades and decades we have no idea if older raw cards suffered this fate!! This especially holds true for the older oversized issues that screw downs were almost always used for. That makes me very leery about sending cards in for grading as I have no idea if this may have happened to any of them.
Thinner cards? And there is no way for us to determine if that has occured.