Coccoina

Katharina Maehler <maehler [at] hab__de> writes

>I have some requests regarding "coccoina". As I learned it is an
>adhesive made in Italy and based on potato starch, glycerol, water
>and almond flavour. My special concern is its long-term effect on
>paper.

You really made my day! This takes me 45 years back and I would have
>never guessed that this pesky adhesive would surface from my past!

You're right about the composition, I guess, so that's why we ended
up eating it when we were kids.  It was a very common adhesive for
paper in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s. It was packed earlier in
light aluminum containers with the name embossed and then in blue
plastic containers, it dried quickly with a fractured texture
typical of starch and glycerol. I still have some of my early
chef-d'-oeuvre pasted with coccoina and I can tell you that it has
no effect on the paper but it loses all adherence and the adhesive
became brittle and crystalline, yellowish.

PS it's better on toasted rye bread ;-)

Pierlucio Pellissier now in Montreal


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:49
                 Distributed: Thursday, March 30, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-13-49-005
                                  ***