Concerned About Strong Odor Coming From Old Album Pages.

Hello all. I am a novice to stamp collecting and have a question about a vintage album and pages I bought off ebay. The old album and pages are probably from around the 1950s. The think the pages are Minkus pages but I am not sure about the brand of the album. Anyway, when I received them, the stamps seem to be in great conditon but the exterior of the album seemed sticky. I noticed a strong pungent odor. To me I would best describe the odor as being similar to vinegar. I discarded the album itself but kept the pages and stamps it contained. I let the pages sit out by themselves for a few months but unfortunately they still have a strong smell that to me seems to be vinegar-like. I may just remove the stamps altogether eventually if I decide the odor is too much. Anyway, my question to you guys is have you had this experience? What could be causing this smell that seems similar to vinegar? My concern is that because there was no EPA back in the day, that the old album or the pages in the album can be leeching out some kind of harmful chemicals used in the manufacture of the album, the album pages, or the hingeless mounts that the stamps are in. Any ideas or information that you guys could provide would be greatly appreciated. Not sure if this is an environmental hazard to my respiratory health or not.

Welcome to the forum!
Sounds like the album/pages have been contaminated with acetic acid. If so, this would be detrimental to any paper since it would lower the pH. I would expect the stamps might eventually become toned (browning around edges and paper becoming darker).

And if it isn't acetic acid, I still would be leaning towards removing the stamps and throwing away the album/pages. If the stamps still held the smell, I would consider giving them a fresh soak in clean water.
Don
APS #094826

Did the listing give any clue that there was an issue like this? Maybe the seller could tell you something that'd give a clue as to the issue. I'd bet the seller noticed it too.

This is one reason I shy away from old collections on ebay, especially general collections in old albums. A lot of them smell. The original owner tired of collecting and it wound up sitting in the basement for decades.

This is something of a mystery. Vinegar is sometimes used to eliminate odors from books, but it's not something I would recommend. (The vinegar doesn't actually come in contact with the pages but still...) Regardless, the vinegar smell should dissipate rather quickly once the album is exposed to the air.

If you don't want to lose the album pages, I would recommend placing them in a sealed box with a good deal of dry baking soda as a first step.

A better solution, perhaps, is to remove the stamps--keeping them isolated from other collections--and giving them a good wash. We can tell you how that's done if you want to spend the time doing it.

Vinegar is used by some to combat mildew and musty smells from old books. I suspect that one of the previous owners of the stamp album used vinegar and overdid it. You can try using baking soda as mentioned by KGB, but the vinegar has likely permeated into every page and will probably take a long time (combined with a lot of page flipping) to desorb. I would suggest you take the route mentioned by Don and KGB -- salvage the stamps and dump the album pages.

Don't know if they did, but the seller should absolutely have mentioned this problem in their listing.

I had a similar problem recently with an old album I got off of ebay. Mine had a strong cigarette smoke odor. I tried the baking soda trick without success. Yes, best advice is to "salvage the stamps and dump the album pages"

Chris

If you light up a ciggie, you won't notice the odour!

Geoff

In the spirit of "no good deed goes unpunished" I recently got a quantity of stamps permeated with a strong stench of cigarette smoke.

I've tried the baking soda method, but with very limited success.

I agree with removing stamps from albums and throwing out the albums.

I'll try he soaking in water cure for used; but, I'm reluctant to do that for mint.

Any suggestions for deodourizing the mint will be appreciated.

The odor doesn't desorb any faster than it permeated. The only people I've known to have any success with using the baking soda had the albums standing with pages very very loose in a plastic tub and LOTS of baking soda for MONTHS before they were able to get rid of the odors.

Personally, unless the album has sentimental value, I would rather only salvage the stamps I wanted/needed. Otherwise, it can become quite a lot of work.

I have never had much success with baking soda. But high quality activated carbon, in an mostly enclosed box, with air circulation should remove much of any bad odors. I have had a fair amount of success by using the carbon filter available in the pet section in your local store. Similar to these...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SmartSift-C...AOSwBLlVebJ~

Air can pass through these so it is fairly easy to mount them in a cardboard box with a small fan.
Don
APS #094826

Large Plastic container with a lid.

Put about 2 inches of non scented cat litter in the bottom and stand pages, but make sure they are separated, on top of the cat litter but do not stuff them into it.

Place the lid on top and seal the container.

Let sit for about 3 or 4 days and see what happens.

Depending on how many stamps you have, you can also remove the stamps and place them loosely in a sliced open plastic bag and put them in the container like that.

I have bought a number of collections that had a terrible stink as well and none of them are healthy. Get rid of them as fast as you can.

If you get any more that reek, file an INAD and return to seller. It is not healthy and most of the stamps will be common if sold as collections.

Thank you guys for the responses. These stamps are not valuable. They are MNH from the 1950s and 1960s. My real concern is that the vinegar like smell could be some kind of a health hazard. I only paid face value so I can simply remove the stamps and discard the album pages. Hopefully inhaling the fumes has not harmed my health.

If this is acetic acid, how would that have happened? Does old album page paper break down into acetic acid?

Acetic acid has a distinct smell that isn`t duplicated by much anything else, so far as I know. It`s a very safe product if used at the concentration one finds in common vinegar sold at the grocery store. I don`t think I`d worry about health repercussions.

Thank you. I don't know that the smell is acetic acid for sure but if I had to pick one thing that I think it smells like, it would be vinegar. I did some research and found that acetic acid is used in some inks so perhaps the album ink contains it. Another possibility could be the clear plastic mounts. Perhaps the older ones contained acetic acid. It seems to be more concentrated in the album pages of one particular album so I removed the stamps from that one and threw the pages and album away.