Removing playing cards from self adhesive photo album

One of my clients came to me with a valuable collection of 1200
valuable playing cards, containing collector's items as an original
set of cards designed by Salvador Dali. They have been collected
since the 1970s and been stored by placing them in self adhesive
photo albums on HERMA Fotokartons. The individual pages are composed
of a card and a foil coated with pressure sensitive adhesive, the
cards being sandwiched between them.

After many years of storage a large amount of the playing cards
cannot be removed anymore. Coated playing cards can still be removed
while those cards without any coating are sticking to the foil. The
manufacturer of these Fotokartons, HERMA, could not give any advice
on how the cards can be removed.

Has anyone come across these kind of photo albums presenting similar
problems?

Sonja Schwoll ACR
Book Conservator
4 Glencoe Mansions
Mowll Street
London SW9 0ER


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:27
                 Distributed: Sunday, November 9, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-22-27-018
                                  ***