A nice long soaking

[T206DK]

never use bleach on T206 cards. it actually degrades the paper fiber more than if you were to use alcohol or lighter fluid for instance. You may also fade the ink using bleach.

Great news I got all the paper off the Brown. It actually soaked quite well. I used warm water and let him take a bath. I have a neat little tool with a rounded square tip (oxymoron) that pulled the paper off with very little issues. I also soaked a few T205's and they came out great.

[T206.org]

Let's see some before & after pics please, Andrew!

I will get pics when I get back tomorrow night.

[tiger8mush]

probably a dumb question, but did you pull the paper off while the card was still wet?

[brob28]

Andrew,

I've never soaked a card before but have some I'd like to. Just curious, how long you soaked the cards for & did you need to soak multiple times?

[vargha]

Bill, typically once is sufficient. The amount and strength of the adhesive determines how long it will need to soak. I know there was a disagreement on this, but my experience is that warm water works faster and better. I do recommend a final rinse/soak however, in clean water to remove any last little bits of stickiness (much like draining the tub of dirty water and giving yourself a final rinse if you were taking a bath after working in the yard).

[brob28]

Guys, thank you for all the advice. I'm going to start with a 61 Koufax that has tape residue down the left and right borders. It's not in great condition anyway, so no real risk of trashing a high dollar card. If my results are worthwhile I'll share some pics. Thanks again for all the great information shared on this awesome site.

[Mikehealer]

Bill I wouldn't soak a Topps card. I wouldn't think they would do very well in water. Try a t206 beater if you are looking to do a test run.

[FrankWakefield]

A 1961 Topps will not soak. The card will separate apart. Don't soak it.

[rhettyeakley]

Bill, you are not going to have success soaking in water to get rid of a tape stain. Water is a solvent, but not everything is soluble in water--tape adhesive is generally not water soluble...there are other solvents out there that may result in a decent removal of tape adhesive and/or residue but I don't know that you will have much success if the card itself is stained from the adhesive.

Soaking starts getting much trickier when you start looking at 1930/40's to the present. With the introduction of industrial adhesives you will begin to have much less luck with simple water soaking. For example if anything is put in with rubber cement soaking will not do you any good.
-Rhett

Here is the Koesters Brown cleaned up