For some reason Reddit won't let me post a photo, but I have a very old (possibly even from 1868???) framed replica of the Gettysburg Address. It's crumbling in its frame, and the paper which backs the frame is also ripping apart. I bought this thing for about $5 off an old guy at a garage sale over a decade ago, stuck it in my closet at some point in high school, and forgot about it til now. I'd like to find out its worth and get it stabilized enough where I can hang it up. I'm afraid to even handle it now. Any thoughts or insight? Sorry if this is the wrong group. I appreciate any ideas.
Hey there! To my knowledge, Reddit doesn't allow combo text+image posts, so if you'd like to add a photo, the way to do it is uploading the photo to Imgur or a similar image hosting site, and link it in the post body!
Hope this helps, cheers!
The 19th c. was delighted to discover that paper could be made from wood pulp, printed huge amounts on acid paper, and created a major headache for archivists and librarians . Tons and tons of yellowing , disintegrating books, magazines, maps, etc are out there.
Can something be done? Well, yes, if it's worth it to you. If you check with a local museum, they'd likely be able to connect you with a paper conservator. A paper conservator could, among other things, wash it to lower the acid content, and mount it on an acid-free substrate. In the meantime, if you can handle it without it falling apart, you could get it out of the frame and away from the present backing ( which is also very acidic) and store it , flat, between two sheets of acid-free paper somewhere that's dark and dry and cool.