Removing photos that were glued to old album pages

[Kickin' Ass & Takin' Names]

I inherited from my mother quite a lot of family documents. Among the
material is an old photo album -- circa 1940's -- that has thick black
paper pages. All the photos in the album are attached to the pages in
one of two ways:

-- with photo corners that were stuck to the album page -- in these
cases, I can simply pop the photo corners off the album page and the
photos are free
-- photos glued or pasted directly to the album pages -- I have been
able to pop a few of these photos off the page -- pieces of the black
paper remain stuck to the back of the photo -- other photos will not
lift off the pages

I need to get this old black paper -- which I am certain is NOT acid-
free -- off the photos. I am thinking that perhaps I could submerge
the photos that are stuck to this black paper in water -- I'm thinking
that the water will dissolve the glue/paste and the black paper but
will not hurt the photos --- after all, these are old photos that were
developed and washed in water at the end of the development process.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[singhals]

Back in the 1970s, my GM soaked her black photo-album pages
in tap water. When I wailed about it, everyone assured me
this was a GOOD thing. (g) The only thing to be added here
are a caution or two -- if your tap water isn't a perfectly
balanced pH-neutral, you may want to use distilled water,
and either way, passing each photo through running water
before drying it can't hurt.

OTOH -- I've had photos tear in my hands while I was
carefully peeling them off the page, and for one-of-a-kind
pix, that's not good. Most glues from the black-photo-album
days will respond badly to temperature extremes, so an
over-night in your deep-freeze may crack the glue enough to
loosen the photo.

Then too -- if the album predates WW-I, chances are it IS
acid-free, because prior to WW-I most of the paper
manufactured WAS. Might be worth springing the $5 for a
test-pen from Michaels or AC Moore or the nearest
arts'n'crafts shop.

Cheryl

[Kickin' Ass & Takin' Names]

> Cheryl- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Thanks -- I'll test the paper and, if it's acid, I'll try the freezer
trick.

[Ron Lankshear in Sydney NSW]

Kickin' Ass & Takin' Names wrote:

All sounds dangerous to me

My mum did similar - she stuck little lables with
names over edges - I started to try remove and
soon decided no

Depends on reasons you want to this

I wanted computer scans - so I scanned them in the
album and cut and pasted the images

--
Ron Lankshear -Sydney NSW (from London-Shepherds
Bush/Chiswick)
try my links
http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lankshear/

[Lesley Robertson]

"Kickin' Ass & Takin' Names" <PopUl...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b8653ee6-e649-4612...@33g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...

You didn't like any of the very sensible answers you got in alt.genealogy
then?
My answer is there.
Lesley Robertson