How Can I "Deordorize" An Old Album?

Hi!
Just got a Scotts 1947 Scotts International Album Part 1 delivered today. It's from an ebay auction, and the binder and pages are in very good shape. The stamps - over 1600 - are all nicely mounted.

The problem is some degree of a "mildew smell". I took a Lysol wipe and cleaned off the outside/inside of the binder, and the outer edges of the pages (binder tightly closed).

This seemed to have helped a bit, but of course the smell is still there.

Anyone out there with some help???
Thanks,
Mobilman44

Here are some ideas. Worth a look. Maybe you can do something with it.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_r...rs_and_books


-IBFS

I have heard (but never attempted) that you can take a tub and fill partially with kitty litter, place your item(s) on top of the litter and seal the tub for about a month. I have also heard that you can use place dryer sheets in a tub with your items also.
Hope this helps.

Well, the wife agrees.............
Wipe the outer edges with hydrogen peroxide solution, and set in a box with an open container of baking soda inside.......
We will be doing this tomorrow - and after a couple days I'll let you all know how it worked out.
Thanks,
Mobilman44

this is probably only a good idea if you don't have cats...

https://goscf.com/t/27078

I have used the kitty litter method to get out "smoky" smell.
It worked very well.
I used a layer of kitty litter, added some baking soda (in a garbage bag). Laid out the album with the pages as loose a possible to allow air flow.
Tied the bag, left it for a few weeks, opened it up and the "smoky" smell was gone, even with a close whiff.
Make sure you allow the air flow around the pages though.

Keep in mind that mildew is a living organism and may be harder to remove.

I have successfully used activated charcoal to remove cigarette smoke smell. Got the charcoal from the garden department of a hardware store, where it's used as a soil amendment, because it's cheaper than the charcoal sold for aquarium filters at pet stores.

I put the charcoal in mesh bags (ok, it was nylons, and, yes, I felt funny buying them, but, hey, I was desperate to solve this problem, and I bought them at the 99-cent store!), layered the items so that the charcoal dust wouldn't come in contact with the philatelic items, and put in a sealed box. Opened and moved things around every day or two, and within a week it was gone. I was surprised that it worked so well and in that short a period of time.

-- Dave

If it smells of mildew then it's a fungal infestation and no-matter what you do it will always be there and infect the rest of your stamps sooner or later. I'm a licensed Mycologist and know what I'm talking about. My best advice to you is one of 2 solutions- 1.) A good fungicide, or 2.) Toss it out.Sorry to say that there is no happy medium to your situation. Best of luck to you. What your smelling is spores.

added a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildew

Hi, Thank you all for some outstanding suggestions and comments.
Last afternoon, I removed the cover and cleaned it thoroughly with a hydrogen peroxide solution. The cover is in excellent condition, and is now "like new". The pages were kept bound (put pieces of wire in the holes on each end of the two metal holders to keep them together)and The only visible problem was the blank thick cover page on front and back. I removed these and will replace with new ones later on.

I then took a hydrogen peroxide dampend rag and ran around the outside edges of the bound papers. Having looked at every page in the album (twice), the faces of all of them appear flawless. Anyway, at this point the smell was very minimal, and I think the binder and thick blank cover pages were the main culprit.

I placed the bound pages on a couple upside down saucers, with the whole thing in a cardboard box. In each corner of the box I placed a "shotglass" of baking soda, and put a couple more small open containers on top. The lid was placed on the box and sealed and put in the corner of the dining room. My plan is to open it in a few days - probably Monday.

Anyway, I will let you all know what the results are, and hopefully they will be positive.
Thanks again,
Mobilman44

I Love Stamps,


Since you are a professional I came across a product called Concrobium. It is basically a sodium carbonate with a couple of other ingredients. It does not contain bleach, ammonia etc. Would this be effective in the mold/fungus war. I read somewhere it is effective on paper and immediately thought of my stamps?

Well, its been 5 days since the album was hermetically sealed in a box of baking soda. I'm still "soaking stamps" with Mexico and Hungary left to finish. For lack of a better reason, I decided to keep the album in the box until I got all the stamps prepped. Sooooo, I'll probably open the box tomorrow or Wednesday - giving it a week to (hopefully) deodorize.

Hopefully, I'll have a success story to pass along in a couple of days!

Hi,
Well, I opened the sealed box today, after 6 days of the pages surrounded by several containers of baking soda.

I can say without reservation that there is a definite improvement. However, the smell is still there - although definitely not nearly as strong.

I'm going to leave the pages unbound as I slowly (very slowly) mount stamps and arrange things to my liking. This will hopefully allow for more improvement, having the pages exposed to the climate controlled air in my room..........

I won't lie to you.... if I had the bucks, I would have bought newly printed sheets, binders, and sleaves.

When I was trying to get rid of smoke smell, I first tried baking soda, since I had it handy, and I found it didn't work very well at all. I think I tried the dryer sheets, since I would also have had them around, but, if I did do that (can't remember clearly), it also wasn't very effective. That's what caused me to go to the trouble to use activated charcoal (which I remember well!), as I described further up this thread. I had low expectations, but it totally worked!

So, although I can't speak for activated charcoal's effectiveness with a mildew smell, it may well be worth a shot if the other methods are not working as well as expected.

-- Dave

Hi again!
Well, tomorrow we will go to Lowes and see about getting the activated charcoal and will give it a try. Thanks!

It's definitely worth a shot. Let me know if you have any questions, or feel free to email me directly through SCF. (And if it doesn't work on mildew, then you'll have everything you need when you end up with stamps or covers that smell like smoke.)

-- Dave

And as it turns out, I received a package today where I'm going to have to take my own advice!