Polybag residue and digital trade dress

Polybags leave glue shadows and sometimes a printed burst that never made it onto the board itself. Digital X-Men covers often restore a clean burst because the art file never sat in a bag. During identification we photograph the residue in daylight, then pause the motion cover on a frame that still shows trade dress.

If the burst language matches, we are likely looking at the same variant family. If the digital file shows a corner box the polybag hid, we write that the collector’s paper copy is not “wrong,” it is simply bagged. The naming line then includes both states.

This habit has saved more arguments than any grade discussion, because the question on our table is “which object is this,” not “what might it fetch.”