My mother, over the years, has built up a collection of  very Limited Edition Caithness Paperweights, as a form of investment for the future and accrue in value over the years. My mother now wishes to sell her collection of PW's along with the original boxes and  authentic Caithness Collectors Cards (giving the Title of the PW, the Number and Limited Size Edition, and artistic Description of the PW).

If the Caithness Collectors Cards are defaced in any way, they immediately devalue the PW has a whole,  so if you wish to sell the PW onto other Collectors possibly interested in the purchase of your PW for their collection - you couldn't do so as easily as you would have been able to if the Collectors Cards had been in pristine condition.

My mother and myself, have been horrified to discover that my 'dear, dear father' [said through gritted teeth] has written on the back of all of Collectors Cards details of date of purchase, where the specific PW was bought, how much the cost was, etc.. My father has written the details not in pencil, not in blue ink, not  in black ink, not in green ink but in BOLD  RED INK, which in my experience is the hardest colour to remove or cover over, especially when written on white card.

Do any Amazombies have any ideas on how to successfully remove the red ink from the card and/or cover it over, to make the card  more aesthetically pleasing to the eye of other would be purchasers / collectors of PW's?

The sad irony of the situation is that my father knew that the PW's were in investment for the future, and would accrue in value and that we could be selling them on  in years to come :-(

Any ideas gratefully received,

Jayne

:-)

How old was your husband and siblings at the time?

My father should have known better...

To be fair to my father, towards the end of his life, he started writing the details of purchase on everything he purchased, such as the tippex bottle, elastic band boxex, photocopier paper wrappers, toothpaste boxes, etc. but why couldn't he have written down the details of the PW purchases in a little  separate notebook, which would have been a far better option all round?

You will have to try removing the actual ink used so you must be very careful or be prepared to accept some damage to the card chosen for experiment if you get it wrong. If you go to You Tube and search for:

"Far From Boring" and enter a search there for:

"Feds Warning Again About Fake Check Scam"

You will see a demonstration of how acetone based thinners can be used to remove ink from paper (in this case a cheque) without damaging the printed information. It takes about 3 minutes and the acetone evapourates quickly when the item is removed leaving the paper clean and dry. It will not work with gel inks, but I am guessing your father used fountain pen ink or ball point ink which should dissolve.

You can only try.

I'd advise just to leave them as-is.

You risk damaging the cards beyond saving, or making them look like fakes.

Are we related?

Or perhaps not, my father had his own form of shorthand and left notes on all manner of things. Try as we may neither me or my sister or any of the clever ones in the family could make head nor tail of it!

Oh, and he had a set of Railway Modeller from the first issue to the  time of his death. He was convinced that they were worth a bob  or two, they might have been but he'd removed covers and all adverts to save space :-(