Small Cracker Jack find - my first

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

You've got 4 Hall of Famers plus Cicotte out of the 8 cards. Nice!

You should be able to soak those cards off the pages, if you know what you're doing. I would start with the Evans, since it's a common and in the worst shape of the lot, and see how it goes. Here is a post I made a few years ago about how to soak cards: http://net54baseball.com/showpost.ph...70&postcount=7

As with just about every post about soaking this one neglects the important fact that if you are going to do it you should use DISTILLED water. Tap water can contain many impurities which can damage a card including chlorine. You can find distilled water in many chain drugstores and some supermarkets, Target etc. and it is usually less than $2 a gallon

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by Michael B

As with just about every post about soaking this one neglects the important fact that if you are going to do it you should use DISTILLED water. Tap water can contain many impurities which can damage a card including chlorine. You can find distilled water in many chain drugstores and some supermarkets, Target etc. and it is usually less than $2 a gallon

I've soaked many, many cards over the past 25 years using tap water and have never had a problem. But I'm sure it can't hurt to use distilled water.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by trdcrdkid

I've soaked many, many cards over the past 25 years using tap water and have never had a problem. But I'm sure it can't hurt to use distilled water.

Long before I moved to Virginia the water in D.C. had enough chlorine in it that you could taste it. It may not be found in drinking water these days, but you cannot be sure what is added. Some people may also use well water which can have minerals which may affect the cards. Glad to see that you have had no problems, but from an archival point of view distilled is always better than tap water.

[JollyRoger]

I'd imagine a good soaking would loosen the glue and they would detach easily from the scrapbook pages. I'd leave them the way they are if they were mine though. Great find!

[brianp-beme]

If it were just a random pickup of some scrapbook sheets, I would have no issue with soaking them. But if they were owned by a family member, I would want to keep them as is, and perhaps frame them as mentioned by others.

Brian

[mullinsm]

Thanks to everyone for the responses and advice! I really appreciate it. I am leaning towards leaving them as is, for now at least. Fortunately, I'm not in any hurry. If I do decide to liberate them, I'll post my results here. If I frame them, I'll share that as well.

One thing I want to investigate is the names penciled in on the borders. Initially I thought they might be the players' first names, but that's not the case. Most of what's written is full names I don't recognize: Chester Larsen, Frank W., etc. My guess is that the owner wrote his friends' names on the cards, but given how few people lived (and still live) out that direction, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. If I find out more I'll share it here.

[pokerplyr80]

Congrats on the find.

It's interesting to note that on the same board members are talking about cards that have been presumably soaked, cleaned up, and bumped a couple of grades being the biggest scandal in our hobby's history. And in this threads others are giving advice on how to do it.