Sender: Rare Books and Special Collections Forum <EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET>
A few reflexions for Gib Smith:
A. What is the POINT of removing those marks? The only reason I can see
is to prevent people from knowing what you paid for a book. (And there
are reasons for that, of course.)
B. If you mean crayola-type crayon, I'm not in conservation, but it
would seem to me that you would be left with some sort of a smudge.
C. Ask the shop people to please mark in pencil (and give them some, if
necessary!) I bet they won't mind.
I have been faced with similar problems. I got conservation to
remove a later label from an 18th-C. opera; they removed that, with the
original imprint. Obviously the later label should have been left as it
was. I also acquired a bunch of latist 19th-C. photos for the ads on the
back. STUPID shop-keeper had stuck on tiny labels; when removed, they
also remove the immediate surface. They are ugly and bothersome, but
they remain (now!) as is.
Hope that helps.
--Bob Dawson
UTx-Austin