Today I got to do one of my favorite things: soaking cards out of albums. I’ve worked on several Sanella Babes in the past (as seen here), but this is my first time working with the Astra Babe Ruth specifically. This makes no difference in terms of the work–but the stress level goes up as the rarity increases.
Enjoy the video and pics that follow, but with a disclaimer: I’m not advocating trying this yourself, so experiment at your own risk. Album pages should be prepared for this process in a very specific way, and drying the cards flat is its own challenge. Further, even if soaking “works” it’s not always easy. And what is easy is to accidentally lose paper–especially on paper-thin cards like these. Years of study, trial, and error have informed my current process.
Note: The cards pictured in the featured image are still in drying phase, hence the slight curling. They will be completely flat after drying.
Here’s a fun (and sped up) video that shows the Astra removal process. Apologies for the soundtrack–it’s a German card after all!
Astra Backs (Rare)
The owner bought 2 albums and was surprised to find one album full of mostly Astra backs. Fun! There are only a dozen of these in PSA’s pop report, and fewer still in SGC.
Testing and Prep Work
He sent both albums, and I spent parts of a couple of days testing for the best removal strategy. From my experience I would guess that the majority of these were pasted in with adhesives that are very easily soluble in warm water. But I have encountered a couple that wouldn’t budge. One album had a card that had already popped out, so that made for a good test subject. Interestingly, very different pastes were used in each album, but both were very weak. The Sanella card looks to have some staining and maybe some “fuzzy paper” from the paste giving way, but the Astra is spotless.
Last Step: Drying
After removal, it’s time for a multi-stage drying process using special drying papers (I disassemble stamp drying albums for this). The owner wanted me to save the album pages if possible–yet another process that I have been dialing in. Usually, people just cut out the Babe, leaving a hole in the page. I was able to rescue both album pages as well, which I think is a “value add” for the album. Why destroy it of you don’t need to? Then the key is isolating those wet pages as they dry. This was the test run:
DIY?
While it’s not rocket science, it is science. Understanding glues, paper, and histories of both are useful. Time, temperature, tools, methods . . . it’s all a bit more complex than it looks in a 1-minute video. I’ll tell you that if you decide to try some DIY removal, be prepared to learn some lessons and ruin some cards.
