My vintage postcard box got waterlogged, salvage tips needed
Last month I kept my postcard collection in a cardboard box on a basement shelf, and a pipe leak soaked the bottom layer. About 60 cards got damp, mostly 1920s travel views from the Chicago area. I laid them flat on towels and swapped the towels every few hours for two days, but some corners still curled and a few ink stamps bled. Has anyone else dealt with water damage on paper collections, and is there a way to flatten the warped ones without ruining them further?
Ugh, "corners still curled" is the worst, been there with a flooded box of old baseball cards lol. What finally worked for me was pressing them between two sheets of wax paper under a stack of heavy books for like a week, changing the paper once a day so they don't stick. Just go slow with it and don't rush the drying or the ink will keep spreading.