Rescue those old photos!

[klmall]

Just spent the entire past weekend carefully removing photos and documents from 2 of my son's Boy Scout troop's Historian albums. They were from 1991 - 1994 and in those yucky, magnetic, sticky page type albums which had already started to yellow some.

Worst of all though is the 1994 - 1997 album I'm working on today. For some reason this album "decayed faster" and the photos have almost merged onto the sticky background. The acid in the pages actually was eating into the photos.

It's also taking forever because I'm scanning in the paper documents (wonderful, boy-written accounts of campouts etc.) and reprinting practically everything on cardstock. Many of the darkened photos need to be scanned in and touched up in Photoshop and I do those as I can. So far I've scanned 30 pages from the 1st album and 60+ from the second album. And the photos in the more recent albums need page protectors etc. Yikes! What have I gotten myself into!

Along with a few 1986 documents, these are the earliest records of the troop and contain so much history that isn't contained elsewhere. I feel like I'm on some kind of archeological dig!

When I have the old albums redone I think I should scan all pages for record-keeping. Considering these albums have just been moving from closet to closet over the years it's amazing anything is still in good condition!

So take it from me, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE open those old albums and at least carefully remove the photos from the pages!

 

[tinkerbell716]

Thank you,Thank you,Thank you!!! I had no idea that these albums could ruin your pictures. I have all of my 3 DD's baby pictures in them stored away. I am going to have to retrieve them from the top of my closet. I hope that they are o.k. but I am still going to take them out of those albums. Wish me luck. Thanks again.

 

[klmall]

tinkerbell716 - I hope your pictures are okay. HINT: If they are truly stuck to the pages remember to slide dental floss carefully underneath to remove them. OR just scan page and all!

Some of the photos I removed last night were stuck to the magnetic pages AND had some kind of double-sided tape underneath too! Luckily I managed to remove about 30 like this, ruining only one photo which I then carefully shoved back down and scanned.

I think I am now finished with the three oldest albums but still have many disorganized later albums to work on.

Kathy - Crusading to save the photos!

 

[Rena75]

tinkerbell716 - I hope your pictures are okay. HINT: If they are truly stuck to the pages remember to slide dental floss carefully underneath to remove them. OR just scan page and all!

Some of the photos I removed last night were stuck to the magnetic pages AND had some kind of double-sided tape underneath too! Luckily I managed to remove about 30 like this, ruining only one photo which I then carefully shoved back down and scanned.

I think I am now finished with the three oldest albums but still have many disorganized later albums to work on.

Kathy - Crusading to save the photos!

That's great advice, Kathy! I just went through that with all my Mother's old photos. I wish I had known about the dental floss because some of the pictures were really stuck!

I spent months scanning the pictures and putting them on disks for the rest of the family. Now I've started on mine (which, thankfully, ARE NOT in magnetic albums)!

 

[pjlla]

Let's not forget our good friend Un-Du! It works fabulously and doesn't damage pictures of ANY AGE! I have used it on old pictures from the 1930's and 1940's all the way up to the 1980's with great luck! For myself, it worked better than the dental floss trick. ........................P

 

[cobbler]

When I first started scrapping that is the first album I did. All my baby pics and such were in those magnetic albums with the sticky back. It took a long time to remove them and such but it was so worth it. Some had started to turn yellow but at least I prevented any further damage.

 

[klmall]

I wasn't able to find Un-do locally although maybe A.C. Moore which is 30+ minutes away has it or one of the art supply places has it.

Everyone on the troop committee was excited to see the first results last night and gave the go-ahead to finish restoration. In fact they offered to open up their files of additional info but I'm nowhere near ready to add pictures and data yet! Just putting the current photos and newsletters etc, in good shape and order is enough! My reward bonus is finding a few photos of my son as a young Scout on trips I didn't attend which I scanned and will put into personal albums.

After I held up two sample "acid brown" magnetic album pages last night the woman hosting the meeting pointed to shelves of magnetic page albums holding every photo of her two children.

Yank those photos now!