Using bleach on your rare books

Recently I obtained a fine library discard: It is one of those
wonderful Scribner's illustrated classics from the Twenties. If
you buy a fine copy of this book from a rare book dealer, you
might expect to pay at least $100.00. Well, my copy is in near
fine condition--except for the usual library junk, that is.

Anyway, as I was pondering the name of library, which had been
stamped in black ink on the top and bottom page edges, it occurred
to me that perhaps carefully applied bleach could remove the
impression.

Almost on the spur of the moment, I poured a bit of bleach into a
shallow container and got a couple of q-tips. Pressing the pages
tightly together with one hand, I took the q-tip in the other,
dipped it in the bleach, and dabbed at the black letters on the
top page edges. Sure enough, after a few swipes, the ink from
the stamp began to fade. In a moment or two, it had disappeared
entirely.

The only drawback at that point was the fact that there was a
bright white space where the stamp had made its mark.
Immediately, I realized the white space had appeared because
the edges of the book had accumulated dust and dirt during
the many decades it likely sat in a library, and the bleach
had dissolved the grit.

Well, having gone that far, I decided to go ahead and bleach
all three page edges completely. The results were astonishing:
The edges are now so white they look brand new.

TDhe experiment a huge success. No damage was done to the book
whatsoever, the annoying black ink impression disappeared, and
the edges could pass for those of a brand new book.

Of course, I am not suggesting that I have increased the
monetary value of the book by doing this. After all,
the book still has defaced endpapers where the library
card and other library material was glued. I will
probably deal with that by gluing appropriate pictures
(removed from a damaged book of the same vintage) over
the places on the endpaper where the card, ect., was
removed.

In other words, it is not about trying to fool anyone
into thinking the book is other than a library discard.
It is about making a wonderful book obtained for the
princely sum of two dollars more pleasing to me.

By the way, I don't recommend the bleaching to
anyone who is not extremely careful. Being just a
bit sloppy might mean discoloring the cloth on the
boards or letting the bleach drip down into the
book,smearing the ink on the pages. If you want
to try this are not strong enough to grasp the pages
tightly together with one hand, then you should place
the book in a clamp or vise (of course using clean,
thick cloths to protect the boards from the clamping
device.

Further, I am sure the quality of the paper has
something to do with my success. Scribner's used
excellent paper for tdhose classics; I shudder to
think what the bleach might do to cheap
pulp-paper books.


Mr. Palmer
Room 314

idiotic post snipped

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use battery acid?

"The Bookshop" wrote in message
...
idiotic post snipped

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use battery acid?



The OP laid out a technique that could minimize damage. He didn't exactly
call for dipping whole books in the stuff. I think I'll take a couple of
unwanted old books and give it a try to see what happens. What's to lose?

- Todd T.

"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"Todd T" wrote in message
...

"The Bookshop" wrote in message
...
idiotic post snipped

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use battery
acid?



The OP laid out a technique that could minimize damage. He
didn't exactly call for dipping whole books in the stuff. I
think I'll take a couple of unwanted old books and give it a
try to see what happens. What's to lose?

- Todd T.



The consequences of using bleach* on paper are explained in the
NewsGroup FAQ

http://www.massmedia.com/~mikeb/rcb/

In response to a suggestion of its use as a remedy for foxing.

quote

I could imagine some tricky sod removing foxing with laundry bleach
which might look okay the first couple years, but Chlorox does immediate
damage to the cellulose content of paper, & the residue salts cause
increasing damage in the long run. There are additional chemical means
of neutralizing the residue salts, but those additional chemicals also
have long-term effects.
Foxing can also be masked temporarily with peroxide, but peroxide
damages paper even more quickly than Chlorox. Both methods are
essentially those of the ignorant or the crooked.


/quote

That was contributed to the FAQ by a regular poster to the NewsGroup
Paghat.


* What's known as Chlorine bleach is normally sodium hypochlorite,
which is used for clothes, while oxygen bleach, is normally hydrogen
peroxide which can be used for hair.

Years ago I remember reading of quasi-magical substances available to
the trade containing words like trichloroflourohexaphylldihyde which
can remove various types of marks and stains without a trace. Maybe
similar to dry cleaning fluid. But they're unavailable to the
public either because they're poisonous when drunk in large
quantities by children - just like regular bleach in fact - or
because they can be used as components in explosives. Or maybe
they just wanted to keep all the stain removal business for
themselves.


michael adams

...


Pretty good answer. Thanks.

- Todd T.

"The Bookshop" wrote in message ...
idiotic post snipped

I really don't think there is any need to begin
hurling insults, and I refuse to respond in kind.
It seems to be you are flying off the handle at
the mention of "bleach" and failing to consider
tdhe context of my experiment. In the first place,
I made it clear that I was dealing with a library
discard which is still a library discard despite
my efforts, and of course if being offered for sale
(which I have no intention of doing) by any ethical
party would have to be advertised as a library
discard, or perhaps a "restored library discard."
My point was that although I prize the book highly,
I found the black ink impressions on the top and
bottom page edges displeasing. As a result of my
experiment, the inked lettering has disappeared
entirely, and the page edges -- because I went on to
apply bleach to all three edges -- are as white as
those you might expect on a brand new book. The
book is far more pleasing to me than it was
when I paid $2.00 for it. Now exactly what
is wrong with that?

Mr. Palmer
Book Room 314

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use battery acid?

"Todd T" wrote in message ...
"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"Todd T" wrote in message
...

"The Bookshop" wrote in message
...
idiotic post snipped

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use battery
acid?



The OP laid out a technique that could minimize damage. He
didn't exactly call for dipping whole books in the stuff. I
think I'll take a couple of unwanted old books and give it a
try to see what happens. What's to lose?

- Todd T.



The consequences of using bleach* on paper are explained in the
NewsGroup FAQ

That's another example of why people should be
careful about blindly following FAQS. As I
explained, the "consequences" for me are that
I have a very nice library discard, a Scribners
classic from the Twenties which (merely two days
ago) had page edges brown with the dirt and dust
of decades, as well as insidious black ink
lettering from a library stamp on the top and
bottom edges, but now has page edges entirely free
of ink impressions and white enough to match those
on a brand new book. Those are consequences I
can live with quite nicely, thank you, FAQ or no.

Mr. Palmer
Book Room 314

[...]


http://www.massmedia.com/~mikeb/rcb/

"Bill Palmer" wrote
That's another example of why people should be careful about blindly
following FAQS.
As I explained, the "consequences" for me are that I have a very nice
library discard...


The pages of which will soon be rotting away at the edges from the
application of chlorine bleach.
--
RWF

"Bill Palmer" wrote in message
om...
"Todd T" wrote in message
...
"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"Todd T" wrote in message
...

"The Bookshop" wrote in message
...
idiotic post snipped

Bleach?! Ridiculous. What's next? Suggesting that we use
battery
acid?



The OP laid out a technique that could minimize damage. He
didn't exactly call for dipping whole books in the stuff. I
think I'll take a couple of unwanted old books and give it a
try to see what happens. What's to lose?

- Todd T.



The consequences of using bleach* on paper are explained in the
NewsGroup FAQ

That's another example of why people should be
careful about blindly following FAQS. As I
explained, the "consequences" for me are that
I have a very nice library discard, a Scribners
classic from the Twenties which (merely two days
ago) had page edges brown with the dirt and dust
of decades, as well as insidious black ink
lettering from a library stamp on the top and
bottom edges, but now has page edges entirely free
of ink impressions and white enough to match those
on a brand new book. Those are consequences I
can live with quite nicely, thank you, FAQ or no.

Mr. Palmer
Book Room 314



Certainly. But the FAQ info raises the possibility of damage that will not
be immediately obvious. I still think it's worth trying on some old and
beaten volumes, to see for myself what happens, good or bad.

- Todd T.

The OP laid out a technique that could minimize damage. He
didn't exactly call for dipping whole books in the stuff. I
think I'll take a couple of unwanted old books and give it a
try to see what happens. What's to lose?

- Todd T.


Todd: I didn't read the beginning of this thread, but if you've seriously
been encouraged to bleach even a tiny spot in a book, you've been
instructed to damage books.

Bleach permanently damages paper & far from minimal damage, it is one of
the major dumbass things that can be done to books, either by novices that
don't know any better, or crooks who're hoping to have a quick sale of a
"cleaned up" book before the damage begins to show.

Problem #1: Bleach (so too peroxide which is even worse) has the immediate
effect of breaking down the cellulose content in paper, which will
thereafter age at a more rapid pace & at a significantly different rate
than the rest of the paper, so that eventually the bleached spot no longer
matches the rest of the page.

Problem #2: Chlorine salt residues remain bonded to the paper permanently,
so that the damage continues over time, sometimes to the point of making
the maltreated spot so brittle that it breaks out & leaves a hole.

Problem #3: The effect of the lingering salts bleeds onto the pages in
front of & behind the damaged spot, sometimes bleeding through three or
four pages on both sides, ultimately damaging more than that one spot you
permanently infused with chlorine salts.

So all you get is a nice ILLUSION of a clean looking book, for a moment in
the book's overall life. THat's the very thing intended by crooked vendors
who hope to sell the book before the damage is obvious, but it should
never be done by people who actually love the books they own & hope to be
able to care for properly.

With valuable documents there are chemical methods of removing a stain
including with Chloramine-T, calcium hypochlorite, or potassium
permaganate -- but this would immediately be followed by a second chemical
rinse that neutralizes the first chemical, &/or followed by a very
thorough flushing with fresh water over the paper to wash out both
chemical treatments since even the neutralizing agent can have long-term
effects. In most cases even when done properly, residues remain that
shorten the life of paper, plus the proper flushing changes the physical
characteristics of the paper. So this is usually done only with a living
fungal stain (foxing) that is apt to grow & damage the paper more rapidly
than any chemical treatment. It is purely the "crook's method" to be
dabbing dabbing, say, a library discard stamping with laundry bleach,
making no attempt either to neutralize the chlorine salts after committing
the dastardly deed, nor attempting to rinse out the salts of both the
bleach & the neutralizing chemical.

Library markings or children's scribbles & suchlike in a book define its
history & yes lower the value, but unless the intent really is to
dishonestly make the book transiently easier to sell at a higher price
than its condition justifies, there's really no reason not to embrace the
given copy's actual history, & if that's too flawed, replace it with
better if & when the chance arises. But using bleach in an attempt to
disguise the book's history is scarsely better than shooting the book with
bullets & calling that minimized damage.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

"michael adams" wrote in message ...
"Bill Palmer" wrote in message
om...


The consequences of using bleach* on paper are explained in the
NewsGroup FAQ


...

That's another example of why people should be
careful about blindly following FAQS.

snip

Those are consequences I can live with quite nicely,
thank you, FAQ or no.

...

i.e. damaged books. The idea clearly never occured to you
to simply clean up the edges, with a blade or an abrasive
of some kind.

No it didn't. Perhaps I can't wield
a blade like you can, but the notion of
my slicing away at the page edges of a
1920's Scribners classic is frankly
rather unsettling. The entire job
with the bleach took me about one-half
hour, because I worked slowly and
carefully while dabbing the bleach on
with the q-tips. I cannot imagine
that anything like the same the favorable
results could have been produced in less
than several hours using a blade Nor can
can I conceive the way anyone but an expert
cutter with long experience could even
do a passable job at something like that.


People such as Paghat who've taken the trouble to contribute
their knowledge and experience to the NewsGroup FAQ, are obviously
rather better informed about such matters - and in Paghat's case
are seemingly rather better at expressing themselves succinctly
and in an entertaining manner, than you appear to be.

How truly galling that must be for you !

Not at all. Whee...

More to the point: I don't know what's got
your back up, Mr. Adams. Yes, we have a FAQ
with a flock of fine words in it. But I also
have--sitting prou8dly on a shelf--a near-fine
library discard, a 1920's Scribners classic
with sparkling white page edges on all three
sides and no sign whatsover of the two black
ink impressions left by a library stamp. Had
I adhered to those fine words, I would not be
able to make such a claim. I simply wanted to
share the results of my experiment with our
readers, so your peevish fit is unwarranted.

Mr. Palmer
Book Room 314

The information provided for your benefit in the FAQ, wasn't just
conjured up out of thin air - but then presumably that's the thanks
people get for trying to simplify complex matters sufficently,
such that the likes of even yourself can understand them.

You're now going back in the cupboard Palmer along with the
"Bookshop" character who this thread seems to have brought
into the open - another long standing troll of RCB when
posting under various aliases.

If you're still interested Palmer*, all the relevant information
can be found on here. Exactly as Paghat said, only using longer words.

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg.../an13-516.html


I can't Tinyurl it, as I would normally do, as my Internet
connection keeps cutting out.


michael adams


Very Ipcress File.....Hmmm Nice!


http://www.massmedia.com/~mikeb/rcb/