jagjetta
Posts: 27
Joined: 8/15/2008
Status: offline
|
Leather was once a living tissue. It's intended use expired when the cow or pig was killed. There are no magic potions for bringing it back to life. You can mask the aging process, but you can't erase the fact that it was once a living tissue and now it is a dead tissue. The tanning process, by its very nature, was an attempt to stop the decay. Left untanned, well...we all know what the results are there.
We all want to feel that we are "preserving" something. And as long as it looks good in our life time, we feel we did just that. Nothing wrong with that. There are no governing "rules" that collectors have to follow. If folks like leather that feels soft and oily today, that is their own business. The fact is, though, many dealers and collectors are refusing to pay full value for leather that has been 'treated' with snake oil being touted as "leather preservative" (the worst of the bunch was invented and marketed as a waterproofing agent--at which it is wonderful. Somewhere, they got in their heads they could market it as a "preservative" and collectors clambored for it). That is the only 'fact' of the matter that I can point to with certainty.
The same thing happened in the daguerreotype world in the 1980s. Up until then, people believed that thiourea solutions could literally erase the tarnish of time. Then, a few scientists and museum curators (Grant Romer and Susan Barger come to mind) said, "HALT! The tarnish you are removing is also taking microscopic levels of the image." Furthermore, they demonstrated that images that were "washed" (as folks called it then), began to show a brown hue after several years. They proposed the NEW wonder drug of cleaning daguerreotypes with electrolysis. That was all the rage through the 1990s.
Then, further studied produced some caution...etching was occurring at the ATOMIC level! "HALT!" went up the cry a second time. Now, the photo-history world says, "no treatment is the best treatment."
But does that mean I as a private collector has to be content with looking at tarnished images of Mexican War soldiers? Of course not. If I want to dip my $6,000 image of a US Mexican War soldier into thiourea that is my business. However, watching the prices of images that have been "cleaned" verus those that are in "original condition" leaves no doubt in my mind that original condition is the way to go.
Another example can be found in the muscle car world. Find a Shelby Cobra in a barn with all the 'original' dirt and patina of a glorified past still on it, and you have a price-record breaking car. "Restore" it, and the price drops considerably. The muscle car guys have figured it out. "As found condition" equals TOP DOLLAR.
I mentioned this to the Pecard folks a few months ago...there is nothing wrong with folks wiping goo all over historic relics as long as they own them. Just don't misrepresent the stuff as "preserving" leather. The National Park Service, the British Museum, and the Smithsonian all agreed that the product does not reverse the effects of aging on leather, just as a fresh coat of paint doesn't keep a fox out of the chicken coop.
Nevertheless, people will do what they believe is right in spite of "facts". They have to, especially if they have been committed to it for years. If one read the NPS, British Museum or Smithsonian reports on leather treatments, the chances are they will say, "Well I know it works for me!" and keep right on doing what they are doing. Admitting that they have done irrepreprable damage to historic objects is a heavy burden. It is much easier on the mind to defend a practice and look for those who hold the same faith then it is to investigate, evaluate and modify collecting practices.
(Just so ya'all know, it is as recent as six years ago when I applied WD-40 to a helmet because I thought it "looked better" and made the rust look less obtrusive.) It takes a heck of a lot of will power to admit that nothing can be done when everything we have learned is that "wet" or "moist" or "shiney" is the same thing as "preservation". Believe me, hang around with a few conservation lab types and they will tell you that "wet", "moist" and "shiney" is exactly the opposite...usually points to slow-speed destruction and devaluation of an artifact.
I realize that I have rambled on and on...I don't supsect that anyone will change their current collecting trends because of it. But I hope some folks will have the humility to say "we don't have the answers on leather preservation and until we do, leaving an object alone is better than doing something that can't be reversed". Science has come a long way since the 1980s (and an ESPECIALLY long way since the pecard formula was hatched prior to WWII!). It has a long way to go. If we can simply not speed up the decay process by slathering goop on leather, we will have done a good bit for the prolonging of original artifacts.
Thanks for letting me share these views,
John Adams-Graf
|
Printable Version
You can't bring it back to life... - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread