Removing ball-point pen ink

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall asks for a method to remove ball-point pen
ink from the endsheet of a book. We recently had the delicate task
to do something similar. The Nobel prize laureate in literature,
Jose Saramago had signed in the library's guest-book and suddenly a
young guest did the same, immediately below the celebrated author.
We were asked to remove this addition.

There is always another way to hide the signature by local fiber
casting,  this must be done very carefully, first I would test the
ball point pen water sensitivity and if it works, it might also
restore the fiber abrasion damages.

Michael Maggen
Senior Paper Conservator
The Israel Museum Jerusalem
Israel

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:56
                 Distributed: Tuesday, January 5, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-56-009
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