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Found a 1912 book in the attic that was bound with arsenic green cloth
I was cleaning out my grandma's place in Albany and found this old poetry book. The bright green cover looked cool, but I did some reading at the library... turns out a lot of cloth from that time used arsenic dye to get that color. I had been handling it with my bare hands for a week. Has anyone else run into old books with dangerous materials? How do you deal with them?
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ross.jessica6mo ago
My uncle had a whole set of those emerald green Victorian encyclopedias. I bought a box of nitrile gloves from the hardware store and a pack of zip-lock bags. I wiped each cover down with a dry microfiber cloth while wearing the gloves, then sealed them individually. They're fine on the shelf now, just don't touch them.
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green.jenny6mo ago
That's basically creating a time capsule for books.
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simon_chen5mo ago
Ever notice how we're all becoming little museum curators for our own stuff? My grandma's old photo albums live in acid-free boxes now, and I caught myself putting my concert tickets in plastic sleeves. We're not just keeping things, we're building tiny archives in our closets.
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