This article is primarily written from a UK-centric point of view, but I know there is a similar downturn in mining in other European countries too.
With the almost complete end of the mining industry in the UK, with land reclamation, with the protection of sites for wildlife and SSSI’s, it is becoming more and more difficult to source mineral specimens from the UK.
This means many of the specimens you can now find are from older collections – second, third, fourth hand, and for some more historical specimens, have perhaps been owned by a dozen collectors before you.
I don’t tend to encounter too many very old specimens, and primarily run into pieces collected during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Despite these not being historic specimens, the provenance of these should be preserved whenever possible. In some cases, the labels are damaged by impact or water, or adhered to a plastic box.
In the case of plastic boxes, they’re often cheap and easily scratched.
This is the process I use to recover those labels.
Now, I am not a conservator, this is not a recommended process for historical specimens and is unlikely to be used in any museums!
It is a cost effective way to recover labels from lower end specimens when they need to be reboxed. In some cases when they are not recoverable, the best option is to simply print a new label, or to print a copy of the original label from a photograph of it.
Just a basic handwritten collection label. Thing is, this was written before I was born, and I feel like it should be preserved.
Obviously, some labels have a lot more information on them than this – some have a collectors name, business, etc. I actually picked this one so I didn’t need to censor anyones name.
The top half of this box was in very poor condition and I didn’t have a suitable quality half to match it.
Some adhesives will crack and putting a razor behind the label will make it fall straight off, but some are still gummy. This one would tear if any further attempt was made to remove it.
I use razors with a bent over piece of metal on the back, they are sold as ‘window scraper’ blades. You can get ten on amazon for £3.90 currently, or a hundred on amazon for £8.99.
You could use a scalpel or similar, I just like the scraper blades as they can be laid almost flush to the box when cutting.
I’ve applied a layer of conservation grade tape to the label to give it some structural integrity.
The tape I’m using here is PRO J-LAR II, which is acid free and non yellowing. I ordered it from PEL in the UK, for £7.65 a roll.
The idea here is that even if you accidentally rip or cut the label in the next step, the label will hold it together.
In some cases, with the tape face applied, you may be able to get the razor all the way under the label and simply cut it off the box – removing the label from the box.
In this case, it didn’t work. The label began to bunch up and tear, so simply cutting it off won’t work.
Here, we start removing the box from the label. Destroy the box, slowly – pliers, wirecutters, or scissors should work. I find most of these boxes are brittle.
Once the darned thing is almost a single ‘sheet’ of plastic, just the label side of the box, you can start to bend it to pieces. Bit tricky to explain.
Bending it over and over again slowly tends to break the glue joint piece by piece, and slowly we can remove the box fragments.
Some adhesives will crack and putting a razor behind the label will make it fall straight off, but some are still gummy. This one would tear if any further attempt was made to remove it.
Bend, bend, bend, bend. Remove it, piece by piece.
Bend it repeatedly, and small pieces of the plastic will start to break off.
Theres a lot of bending involved in this process, unfortunately. Not every time, but pretty frequently.
If any bit of the label starts to tear, bend a different area.
Once its been removed entirely, you can look at keeping the label intact long term.
Once the label has been removed we can look at a few possible ways of keeping it preserved and stable long term.
There are a couple of simple choices, and again – I’m not a conservator, so I can’t really tell you which is best. Best probably varies piece by piece.
- Mount it to a new piece of card.
- Coat it in the conservation tape.
- Mount it in a storage pocket of some kind – these coin pockets would be a suitable size for most smaller mineral labels.
I tend to mount the labels to a new piece of card, with the conservation tape previously applied protecting the face of the label.
Know of a better method? Leave a comment!