Preserving Old Documents

Sunday morning, a great time to look at parts of your collection that has been ignored. Only to find out that they are falling apart!

I have many old documents where the paper is coming apart! These are old slave documents, indentured servants documents, promissory notes etc., mostly all with early RM series Revenue stamps. Some, early 1700 stuff with British seals. You get the idea.

Does anyone know of where I can send these for conservation before they just completely fall apart?

Art

Google "document or paper conservation" and you'll find private conservation companies out there.

Example: http://www.conservationofpaper.com/welcome.html

It won't be cheap just to let you know.

If you have a large local museum they can recommend a document restorer that does a good job. Sometimes even some of their conservators have a side business restoring items. A lot of museums also have preservation classes.

Here are several sites that I used to start reading about paper preservation.
http://www.loc.gov/preservation/ - Library of Congress site
http://www.nedcc.org/resources/leaf...rtifacts.php - Northeast Document Conservation Center