Crayon on paper

Audrie Schell <schellaj [at] mcmaster__ca> writes

>Recently I received a children's book published in 1925. The
>textblock is of coated, wove paper and several leaves exhibit
>scribbles of purple wax crayon. Someone was having fun!  I would
>like to know if there is any way this media can be removed.

I'd leave the crayon--were working on a printing history teaching
collection including much children's material, much torn (which we
fixed), much scribbled on (which we didn't) and some vomited on
(documented it, cleaned it--surprisingly the ethical question never
arose on those ones). it is IMHO genuinely useful info: at certain
periods children would *never* have been allowed to write on books,
and at others, it is OK.  There is a PhD waiting for someone in the
year 2102 on this, I expect, so the crayon stayed.

Oh, and a lot of crayon comes off with Mars Plastic erasers


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 15:11
                  Distributed: Thursday, July 12, 2001
                       Message Id: cdl-15-11-004
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