Growing up I remember Mom putting the family photos in these phot albums with wonderfully collorful designs, and when I grew up I used the latest version of the same type of albums.
The Sticky Page Photo Album!
The last albums of this type that I bought were over a decade ago.
A few years ago I began to remove, very gently, photos from the oldest albums, and putting them in envelopes by year.
Luckily I never lost a photo.
Yesterday I Honorably retired the last 3 such albums, the one in the bottom center, being the oldest, next to the 2 open ones on its left.
You can see the brown edges of the sheets and, trust me, there were pages that looked far worse.
Luckily I lost only 5, insignificant, photos(Pictures of places I've been to) out of a couple hundred or so.
The open album, on the right, is not a sticky, and I will eventually get similar ones for all my photos.
So why all the fuss?
I never really understood the details myelf, undertanding only that there was a risk of irreparable harm coming to important family treasures.
The "magnetic" sticky glue can eventually eat through the pictures, and sometimes cause them to rip when you try to remove them from the album.
If, like me, you never knew of a safe way to remove the pictures, then what I did is what you try, with varying degrees of success.
However, today, I've found advice that can be considered as alternatives:
1. Nancy Ellen Carlberg, in her 2001 book called Overcoming Dead Ends, suggests "using a hairdryer to heat the pics for easier removal.
2. 3 hours ago I tweeted the Following:
#Genealogy With Sticky Page Photo Album (SPPA) Disease pics can B so affected by the glue they R damaged irreparably. Have U lost Pics?
One response I got was from the Geneabloggers who wrote:
The best way to deal with those old "magnetic" albums is to scan the entire page then split up into individual pics.
Have you lost pics?
Do you have tales about saving photos?
Share your stories in the comments!
****5/27/09 - UPDATE****
Ack! Please no hairdryers or freezers!
That's the immediate reaction that Sally Jacobs, The Practical Archivist, had...after 1st saying "Excellent job on the rescue!" ;-D
In a comment, that I am promoting to Update Status, she proceeds, at length, to edumicate:
Hairdryers are too hot and freezers are too wet to be safe on your photos. It absolutely WOULD hurt to give this a try. Dry photographs are *not* the same entity as sopping wet photographs. What is a "best-last chance" in one case is unnecessary and risky in the other. Sorry to be so bossy about it, but it breaks my heart when someone who is trying to help only makes matters worse. Your best bet for simple safe removal is a stainless steel tool called a "micro spatula." You can Google that word and find several styles to choose from. You can even read an ode to the wonder tool that is the micro spatula. As The Practical Archivist, I've written about The Chemical Sandwich of Doom (My term for these horrid albums). That article also includes information on a kit I created to help you rescue your one-of-a-kind photographs safely. Here's wishing you all a safe and happy rescue! Her post, and her blog (Here's hoping she returns to blogging soon!) are a wonderful resource not just for Genealogists, but photographers in general. ****END UPDATE****
I've heard that if you put the pages in the freezer for a bit, the glue stiffens and then the pictures "pop" off when you bend the pages.
I know that freezing photos is recommended after a flood, so I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to give this a try.
Posted by: Lisa VonLanken | May 24, 2009 at 05:55 PM