Question in Regards to an old photo album.

[MattS.]

Hey guys,

Recently while going through my grandmother's attic (she was born in the early 30s) I came across this very old blue photo album... Upon opening it up I found WW1 photographs that belonged to her father (WW1 Artillery Vet - USA). I haven't been able to identify anyone in the photos or whether or not he took them or how he got them. Some of the later ones are somewhat "glued" in but my biggest question is how should I preserve them? Should I take them out of the book and have them separate?





I didn't want to take many pictures of the actual pictures to keep from damaging them. a few are somewhat gory, with mass graves and dead german soldiers. I'm just wondering how I can preserve them so my kids (i'm 20 now) could one day see them.

[Paul R.]

Matt... Thanks for the photos they help out a lot. You will hear that keeping the photos in an old photo album is okay. In reality that’s far from the truth. Yes, old photo album pages usually had a rag contents to them, and that the good thing. However paper mfg companies used a lot of sulfur and binders to make paper stiff and hold together however these type of pages break down.
Actually it happens about the 30-40 year mark. For historic purposes I would photo graph each page. Then purchase an archival photo album with archival pages. Next I would carefully remove the photographs (wearing gloves). Then take a pencil and mark the photo on the back and the exact spot in which it was removed from the album (example photo #1 numbered on the photos back). Then mark the exact area on the photo page were you took it out of number that #1.
That way if or when you want to sell it you can match up the exact place were the photos were remove from. Than safely store the photo album in acid free box
<O</O

[MattS.]

I'll look into getting a hold of the album and the pages asap. Hopefully it will happen this summer (college student = finals suck. ha) but yeah, I've noticed the pages were starting to "crumble" and didn't want to see the pictures happen with it.

In regards to someting like a post card (which I believe some of them are) is there any difference in attempting to store/protect them?

[Paul R.]

Treat the postcards like photographs. Both should be carefully removed from the album. Just make sure the new album is 100% archival safe. The album may cost a bit more to buy, but in the long run worth a few extra dollars.

[D_Dutch]

Hello all,

I'm sorry that I'm replying on an old thread but I have a similar case where the album is in a bad shape and I want to remove the photographs out of it, but they are glued on them. Someone already tried to remove photographs once with a knife (which damaged some photographs). Does anybody know how I can remove the photo's from the pages without damaging them any further?

With kind regards,

Koen.