Yellowed Stickers

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

Hey fellas! I've been interested for some time now in using some stickered pieces from a set. Problem is that the set is older (70s) and I always find the attached stickers to be yellowed. Is there any way to minimalize, if not eradicate the yellowing on them? Here's the pieces I'm looking at: 

s-l1600 by The Neighborhood Merchant, on Flickr

[deraven]

I'd be curious to know if anyone does have a non-destructive way to handle with with that older style of paper (well, non-vinyl) sticker.  You best bet might be to recreate them altogether and build a new copy with new stickers for display if you want to keep these originals in-tact (which I would), and perhaps even display them side-by-side.

[Evans]

I don't know any mean of de-yellowing such paper stickers. The only way to have white stickers (as far as paper stickers -made until 1980- are concerned) is to buy reproductions. Even stickers in MISB sets will show some yellowing because of the glue that goes into the paper. Sun and humidity can worsen the yellowing, I have the same set with worse yellowing on stickers.

Your stickers are in excellent condition by the way!

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, Evans said:

Your stickers are in excellent condition by the way!

And they really do add a lot to the lovely appearance of the set! It is a vintage set - and the stickers point that out - in a very nice and "smooth" way.

I would certainly leave them as is! There is no way, new stickers could compete, as far as I am concerned.

Best wishes,
Thorsten   

[62Bricks]

This yellowing is probably caused by acidity in the paper and glue and is not easily reversible. Although it may be possible, it would probably also dissolve the glue. I agree that these are in such good condition aside from the aging, they look fine as is.

I have had some luck with stickers that are darkened from dirt with simply soaking them in water with a little dish soap while they are still on the brick. You can rub the wet surface very lightly - use your fingers - to remove some of the dirt (much of which is often bits of the glue that have seeped around the edges and attracted dirt). Be careful not to rub off the top layer of paper that has the printing on it.

Then just let it dry. Paper is pretty resilient.

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

12 hours ago, deraven said:

I'd be curious to know if anyone does have a non-destructive way to handle with with that older style of paper (well, non-vinyl) sticker.  You best bet might be to recreate them altogether and build a new copy with new stickers for display if you want to keep these originals in-tact (which I would), and perhaps even display them side-by-side.

Thanks for the suggestion! Seems like this may be the only thing to do, as I need this to match a white wall so I'm trying to go for as pure white as possible. Anyone have any suggestions on any easy way, or perhaps a site to recreate the stickers? 

12 hours ago, Evans said:

I don't know any mean of de-yellowing such paper stickers. The only way to have white stickers (as far as paper stickers -made until 1980- are concerned) is to buy reproductions. Even stickers in MISB sets will show some yellowing because of the glue that goes into the paper. Sun and humidity can worsen the yellowing, I have the same set with worse yellowing on stickers.

Your stickers are in excellent condition by the way!

Wow, thanks for the advice! I actually don't own these, I just took a picture of one I was interested in. Interesting idea with the reproductions. Is there a site I possibly out there that is currently remaking these?

10 hours ago, Toastie said:

And they really do add a lot to the lovely appearance of the set! It is a vintage set - and the stickers point that out - in a very nice and "smooth" way.

I would certainly leave them as is! There is no way, new stickers could compete, as far as I am concerned.

Best wishes,
Thorsten   

Thank you for the message, Thorsten! I agree that they look excellent and have a very nice appeal! Sadly, I was hoping to use them for a white clock or something of the like, which makes the yellowing difficult to overcome.

8 hours ago, 62Bricks said:

This yellowing is probably caused by acidity in the paper and glue and is not easily reversible. Although it may be possible, it would probably also dissolve the glue. I agree that these are in such good condition aside from the aging, they look fine as is.

I have had some luck with stickers that are darkened from dirt with simply soaking them in water with a little dish soap while they are still on the brick. You can rub the wet surface very lightly - use your fingers - to remove some of the dirt (much of which is often bits of the glue that have seeped around the edges and attracted dirt). Be careful not to rub off the top layer of paper that has the printing on it.

Then just let it dry. Paper is pretty resilient.

I do have a few darkened stickers, so that suggestion will definitely come in handy, thanks! I was wondering, perhaps I could remove the aged glue, and since I have an adhesive blank sticker sheet, I could use that to reapply the stickers. Mabye this would help? Any thoughts/suggestions? 

 

Thanks everyone for the messages, it means a lot to see the quick responses!

[Mylenium]

You'd likely have to approach this how actual restoration of historic paintings, books etc. is done - via a transfer process where the top layers are fixated onto special transfer paper and foil using soluble glues and varnishes that don't chemically interact with the paints and inks and then the medium is removed using yet another physical and chemical process. None of this is trivial in any way, so unless you seriously have to restore the set for an exhibition or have a very rich person paying for all of that it doesn't really seem worth the effort. Also do not ignore that the glue also interacted with the plastic, so removing the stickers might be even more damaging. Leaving everything as it is is probably the most sensible approach, give or take trying to remove some of the stains with q-tips and a light mix of water, alcohol and a detergent.

Mylenium

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

 

 

 

 

2

51 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

You'd likely have to approach this how actual restoration of historic paintings, books etc. is done - via a transfer process

I was thinking of using an x-acto blade and a damp q-tip to carefully chip at the glue till it all was removed, but perhaps that isn't the most viable solution. Unless anyone has an easy way of knowing how to reproduce these without the sticker sheet or something of the like, I may just have to redesign to tower in tan to semi-match the color. Thanks for the intricate response, appreciate it!

[Evans]

There is a NL based shop which states they can recreate any sticker, they don't have yours yet, so you may ask them? It's Brickstickershop. I haven't tried yet, but I will make an order there next summet to get S.N.C.F. stickers for my 12V trains. Too much D.B. in my collection...

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

On 1/22/2020 at 11:31 AM, Evans said:

There is a NL based shop which states they can recreate any sticker, they don't have yours yet, so you may ask them? It's Brickstickershop. I haven't tried yet, but I will make an order there next summet to get S.N.C.F. stickers for my 12V trains. Too much D.B. in my collection...

Thanks for the link, Evans. I contacted them and it seems they plan to add the stickers to their stock in half a year or so. This is fine with me, so I consider my problem solved. However, if anyone else had this problem, and knows of an easy glue-removing chemical and or another fix, feel free to add it on to help anyone else out who stumbles across this post.

Thanks again, everyone. You've been extremely helpful!