Meltonian shoe cream

I have just read an article entitled Bringing New Life to Tired
Tomes in the March 1998 issue of O. P. World which is published by
an out of print service called Interloc. It's written by Robert
Colver and is very interesting. He mentions the use of Meltonian
Shoe Cream as dye for scuffed leather and faded bookcloth. I have
searched the Cons DistList archives for mention of this product but
found nothing. I am interested to know what those on this discussion
list think about this product. Particularly about how archival it
may or may not be. Mr. Colver states:

   "Not shoe polish generically, but Meltonian by name. It already
    has a devout following among booksellers and an equally devout,
    if more clandestine, following among book repairers. It's
    advantages are many: It's readily available at most good
    shoe-repair shops. It comes in an absolute palette of colors
    (There are a dozen or so variations on brown) which can even be
    mixed and blended like acrylic paints. It's cheap and easy to
    use. It masks scuffs and evens out color without hiding old
    marbling patters or grain patterns. It's not a wax and leaves no
    sticky surface. From a conservation standpoint, it's basically
    chemically benign. Not only is it not acidic, it's slightly
    basic, which means it is actually buffering the leather."

I would also be interested in knowing what people think of the
article in general. There is some mention of using solvents to
remove white-ink library numbers from old library books that have
been put back into the market place to be traded among book
collectors. The solvents mentioned include Naphtha (lighter fluid),
lacquer thinner, acetone (finger nail polish remover), and toluene.
The author does state that toluene should be one's last resort. Any
comments?

Marlan Green

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:74
                   Distributed: Friday, March 6, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-11-74-016
                                  ***