Discoloration of photographs

Genevieve LeMoine <glemoine<-a t->polar< . >bowdoin< . >edu> writes

>One of our volunteers recently approached us with a problem
>regarding her family photographs.  Some of the oldest (tintypes and
>prints on paper) had been stored on inexpensive "magnetic:
>pages--the kind with lines of some adhesive on them.  She knew this
>was not great, and checked them regularly. this year she found that
>red staining had developed where the photographs were in contact
>with the sheets.

Just a quick note about print discoloration in albums. We've looked
at albums several times over the years. This staining is relatively
common. We were surprised to see in one album from the mid-1970s to
see such staining go right through RC prints (that is to say through
two layers of polyethylene, and one each of paper and gelatin.) It
is one of the reasons that a stain component is included in the
photographic activity test (ANSI IT9.16) which tests enclosures,
inks, and adhesives for chemical interactions with photographs.

There's not much that can be done. Bleaching such stains would
simply remove the image also (or at least cause some damage.) It's a
lesson about album quality that hopefully fewer people will have in
the future as we all become more educated about album problems.

-Douglas Nishimura
Image Permanence Institute

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:92
                 Distributed: Thursday, April 24, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-10-92-001
                                  ***