Soaking Question(s)

[Dalkiel]

I bought this book quite excited to try to do my first soak, but now that the time has come I’m not as enthusiastic. Any advice? Since they’re glued to the pages of a textbook will it affect my results? Will the print on the pages transfer to the cards? Should I do an entire page at a time or separate them first?

Ideally I’d love if someone with vast experience in the practice would perform the service for a fee, but I’m not optimistic.

Thanks!

[Tyruscobb]

I’ve soaked a few 1915 Crackerjacks before and had great success. I used distilled water. Have patience. Don’t worry about soaking them too long. It will take a good 30 minutes to an hour. Go slow. Make sure you have a small pair of tweezers and a needle.

Hopefully, the paste was water-based. Just my opinion, but I’d try to individually cut each card out from the textbook and individually soak them. Don’t know if there will be a transfer. My cards were pasted to a blank scrapbook. Good luck!

[FrankWakefield]

First, let's get your anxiety in check. Do that by cutting out from the top picture that remnant of the T206 that is under the Ewing T205 and above the Hoffman T206. It looks like you could cut that out from the page without cutting any of the other cards.

Once you cut it out, rinse it under a running cool water faucet, just to get any loose dirt or grime free. Then put it in a glass of cool tap water. (Unless you have really bad mineral water there is no need to buy distilled water for this.)

Let that bit of card soak. A few hours. Maybe half a day. I suspect if it's held by flour paste it'll fall loose from the page, or visa versa, in the glass. Fish out the piece of card, rinse it off. Blot it a bit with a paper towel or dishcloth, then let it air dry for 20 minutes or so, then put it between several clean paper sheets, and stack it between several books. See how it is after a day or two.

You'll be happy with your results. You'll be ready to soak them, entire page of them.

Don't sell your results without disclosing that you soaked them. Soaker haters will hate you; soaker haters are in denial about most of their tobacco cards having been soaked years ago.

Back in the day, old collectors would soak bunches of scrapbooked cards in a bathtub.

If you start out with that T206 with most of the front missing, you'll feel better about the process.

If the cards don't come loose at all, then you have them held with something that isn't water soluble. That'll be problematic.

I hope you find a BroadLeaf or a Uzit in there!!!!

[FrankWakefield]

One more thing, the print on the pages should be unaffected by a water soak. If there's water based pen ink on the back of a page, that could dissolve in the water and tint the cards. If that problem is present, message me and I'll offer a strategy. And don't soak with alcohol or some nonpolar solvent without testing such with a bit of a page that has some of that type print on it.

[Dalkiel]

Thank you. The Cy Young is definitely a piedmont, but most are so heavily glued I can’t tell. I appreciate the information. I’ll give it a shot this weekend.

[Billbays]

Super cool pick up there! I don’t have anything to add as far as soaking advice, but I wish you luck.

[Bridwell]

Cool project. How did it go?