Gone with the stain. Dick Towle

[steve B]

Originally Posted by wonkaticket

For the most part Jay was correct we are not talking about saving for future generations one of a kind historical documents or works of art, that if actions are not taken will be lost to the ages. There are plenty of 1952 Mantles around as well as most other issues Dick is working on.

Lets also be honest if the above is a toll road with innocent preservation/disclosure being the south bound lane and profit/deception being the north bound lane....which do you think has more traffic jams in our hobby?

Cheers,

John

Obviously the northbound lane has been a parking lot for years. Sometimes a breakdown gets towed, making room for a new busload.

I usually take a very long view of things. It's very true there are plenty of more modern cards around now. That will probably remain true in my lifetime.(The 52 mantle is a doubleprint after all, plenty to go around)

I do think there's room to consider the very long term results of what we do today. That includes whether any cleaning done now will cause a larger problem later.
Places like the LOC don't just do the preservation work on unique and valuable documents and art. They deacidify in the neighborhood of a million books and documents a year Obviously not all of it is rare, valuable or even interesting.
http://www.loc.gov/preservation/scie...ss_deacid.html


I'm sure some of my feeling that properly done preservation is ok comes from learning some stuff about non-card items where it's more critical. (more below, under the line if you want to ignore it -Being concise isn't a skill I have.)
The word properly is critical here - Some of what's done may hide problems or create new problems- I'd have to know a lot more about exactly what Mr Towle does to figure out how to categorize it. And unfortunately it's a trade secret.
Removing surface filth is obviously something I agree with, I've done it myself. The trick is in having limits. I probably could have cleaned the card I showed better. But I had problems with going farther. What I did was near the limits of my skill, and near the limits of what I felt was proper.

I think removing tape is good if it can be done in a way that ends up neutrally- All adhesive gone and solvents neutralized.
Water stains usually come with some degree of cardboard damage. removing the stain probably just hides the problem. Fixing the damage would I think be going too far.
Scrapbook residue that can be removed easily should probably be removed.
Some of the glues are acidic, and taking the long view should be removed.

It's hard to know just where to draw the line sometimes.

And I'm sure I might feel differently if my collecting was in a different price bracket. The 59 common I tried to save would go to recycling or my kids these days.
I do think the TPGs need to change things- reverse the time factor, spend more time on detection of problems. If someone is spending more to have an expensive card looked at I think both the hobby and the submitter deserve a bit more time spent rather than simply bumping the 60 second look to the front of the line.

Steve Birmingham

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Old newspapers suffer terribly from the nature of the paper they're on, and films can suffer from both the film itself and the sort of emulsion holding the image.
As an example
Technicolor should remain looking good for several more lifetimes. But it stopped production in the US in 1974-5 and in Europe and the UK in 1980 and 78.

But most stuff that was needed inexpensively and quickly was done on Eastmancolor film introduced in 1952, and that stuff loses color easily.

Television was distributed on film in the 60's-70's, so the NFL game of the week was on film, ALL Eastman, all fading to nothing but red.
The world series highlight reels made by Coca-Cola are almost all Eastman color. And all faded. (I own the only Technicolor one I've ever seen, so there are a few out there.)
Poor storage can cause the plastic itself to break down and release acetic acid, which accelerates the breakdown.

Oddly home movie film was more likely to be Kodachrome than a commercial film. And Kodachrome is pretty much as good as Technicolor.