About 20 years ago, a lifelong autograph collector decided to part with his extensive index card collection. He was a chain smoker. He kept his index cards in albums mounted with photo corners. The collection stunk (and I am a smoker, just not one who smokes either inside or around anything of value). If your habit can manage to even churn the stomachs of fellow smokers, there may be a problem.
When the collection was disassembled from the scrapbooks, you could see the entire surface of each card had browned from nicotine, and the unexposed corners where they had been mounted were fine. Again, even as a smoker, it just made no sense. How did the nicotine invade closed albums? I could unerstand if the index cards were laying out on a table for 20 years, but... It was remarkable.
There are still pieces of this guy's collection being offered for sale on eBay to this day.
|