Cards that CAN and CANNOT be soaked?!

[conor912]

Great thread. Anyone ever try obaks or T3s?

[jbsports33]

Any R cards can be tough like Goudeys - but anything earlier is a bit easier - I think it was the glue in the 30s and 40s that make it hard – but we have had no issues with T206 type cards and even 19the Century - lots of non-sports are in scrap books, make good practice

[Tao_Moko]

I think there are mixed results on T209-2 but mine was not a success. Lost several pieces of the image and text on the back. May have been an isolated incidence but scared me away from future attempts.

Still haven't heard much on T207's. How does the gloss handle a soak?

[pencil1974]

Anyone ever attempt to soak a Donut of America card. I have one that has glue and extra paper (scrapbook) on the back but never have attempted on anything other than a "real" type of card before.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by pencil1974

Anyone ever attempt to soak a Donut of America card. I have one that has glue and extra paper (scrapbook) on the back but never have attempted on anything other than a "real" type of card before.

I am curious if you ever did this? Since the backs are blank I am not sure what good soaking is going to do? Plus they are all hand cut from boxes so the grade or appearance won't be helped too much.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Has anyone had any success with 1948 Bowman baseball or football. It seems that a high percentage of them have a brownish, dirty tint?

[ZachS]

Had a good soak yesterday. I picked up some T121 Sweet Caporal WWI Scenes cards and one of them had a glob of some sort of adhesive. I soaked it overnight and the next morning it started flaking off so I left it to soak all day yesterday. When I got home the glob popped off fairly easily. It left a slight stain where the adhesive was but it looks much better than it did. Total soak time was around 24 hours.

Before and after (the after pic was taken with my phone and doesn't look that great... the actual card looks much nicer):

[Harford20]

Well, using trdcrdkid's soaking thread, only varying a bit with warmer water, finally sent some of my 19th century trade cards to the depths. Was amazed at how well things went. Most of my soaking times were near 20 minutes before the old album just peeled off.

I did run into some "newer" attachment techniques on one set of cards that had paper on the back. OK, new question: has anyone ever found a "safe" way to remove double-stick tape without removing the back of the trade card? Is double-stick tape completely non-water soluble? I did try very hot water for as much as 30 minutes without any visible change in the tape. The cards still look 20x better without the thick paper on the back, but if I could the tape off it would be a total coup. Any ideas would be great.

Dave

[Stonepony]

I'd not soak a T213. I recently couldn't resist soaking a T213 Matty which had glued paper covering entire back. I'm not patient and it took 2 hrs of soaking and teasing the paper off with difficulty. The back came off ok, but that T213 sheen/gloss was totally lost giving the card a bland, washed out appearance. Lesson learned.

[kmac32]

Did a T205 this afternoon to remove scrapbook paper. Card soaked quite well and paper came off the back in about 2 minutes. Went to dry card and there was a small spot of glue that stuck to the paper towel that I was using so I took a wet qtip to remove the fragment of towel. Came off pretty easy but so did a couple of the red ink letters so decided to leave well enough alone. As mentioned earlier, T205 cards can be soaked but the ink on the back is fairly fragile so you have to be careful in drying the card and nit too much rubbing or you can lose ink. I echo Runscott's comments with respect to T205 cards.

[xplainer]

1914 Polo Gounds - No.
Tested one and it split in half. I guess two halves are glued together on this issue.