Your Magazine Restoration Tips & Tricks

[Blayne266]

Hey guys, I’ve been collecting magazines for many years and I’ve had multiple magazines that have been damaged slightly with either the silly ‘coMag’ stickers leaving residue on the covers or ball point pen on the inside pages. I was wondering if anybody has any tips or tricks for these resolving or reducing these issues? Thankyou

 

[russianelf]

Great idea for a thread!

If the covers are glossy, wet wipes can do the trick of removing glue residue, but it's not always the case - especially with those pesky comag stickers! I'd also like to know if there's a way to deal with them.

Also another thing is humidity damage - you know, when the pages become tight and wavy next to the spine, so you can't fully open the magazine and it only goes halfway, other wise the pages crumple. Wonder if that can be fixed.

 

[vogue28]

Eeek... I'd firmly stay away from using wet wipes on the covers of magazines, going from a past experience a few year back. It completely ruined the cover, soaked right through and made a hole... even when pressing lightly. Had to dash out and purchase another copy!

I've found the best solution to be heating the stickers with a hairdryer on medium heat, then using a plastic bank/store card to lift the edges and ease the sticker off. The heat melts the glue and allows the sticker to... unstick. It worked perfectly for me a few month back with a few copies of Vogue Spain, and even kept the gloss intact.

You might want to try this on a older/less precious copy first, however! I would hate to be held responsible for any disasters.

 

[Blayne266]

As a specific request today I bought Vogue Italia July 2005 (makeover madness) but the inside editorial has minor pen annotations, I’ve been searching all over for answers to only see people mention acetone but I’m worried it will ruin the pages, any past experiences with this?

 

[vogue28]

Never tried to remove ink from the inside pages. I would've said it's irreversible and the damage is done, unfortunately.

The real question is: Why do people even annotate the pages? Bookmark the page you're interested in, and save someone from misery. I always snigger whenever I catch someone deface a magazine like that (a total pet peeve of mine being someone FLICKING through the pages of a magazine in the store, putting it back and leaving indents in the cover and throughout the inside). Ugh!

 

[Fiercification]

This thread reminds me of how many times I've sello-taped magazine bindings and pages with minor rips !

Sadly I don't have a solution for removing pen inside the pages. What I do do is I take a bit of kitchen towel and wet it with a really small bit of water and dab any marks that appear inside...sometimes this helps but other times it's no use (e.g. traces of food grease or Vaseline etc. from fingers).

 

[russianelf]

Eeek... I'd firmly stay away from using wet wipes on the covers of magazines, going from a past experience a few year back. It completely ruined the cover, soaked right through and made a hole... even when pressing lightly. Had to dash out and purchase another copy!

Yeah, only strong glossy covers can manage that. I almost rubbed a hole in a 1996 US Vogue once so now I pick my battles lol

 

[aracic]

Eeek... I'd firmly stay away from using wet wipes on the covers of magazines, going from a past experience a few year back. It completely ruined the cover, soaked right through and made a hole... even when pressing lightly. Had to dash out and purchase another copy!

Did that with Fei Fei's Vogue Italia cover from 2013... almost cried when I saw what I did.

 

[Srdjan]

I noticed that the sooner you remove the price sticker, the better. If it's stuck for too long, it gets nasty.

 

[slayage]

As you can see in the picture, the stack of US Vogues is bent in the middle for some reason. Is it because of the quality of the paper or because of the spines? I only have this problem with the US Vogue.
I really do hope someone is able to help me fix this issue because I want to keep all my magazines in good condition and this ain’t it.

 

[aracic]

^Not sure what it is, but my US Vogue stack is also bent like that.

 

[RanThe]

I also have that problem. It helps if you keep US Vogue upright and stacked tightly and they won’t bend. I’ll try to upload my collection in a few moments.

 

[slayage]

Hi, guys!
I have no idea whether this is the right thread to post this or not, but here goes nothing...

Does anyone know, why there’s this huge white block on the cover of every US Harper’s Bazaar issue ever since I started to receive my subscription copies? It seems to be non-removable and it’s annoying the heck out of me... The customer service at Hearst offers no help whatsoever.

 

[JPineapple]

Does anyone know, why there’s this huge white block on the cover of every US Harper’s Bazaar issue ever since I started to receive my subscription copies?

Is for your address, they use it to put a stick with your delivery information.

 

[SLFC]

Hi, guys!
I have no idea whether this is the right thread to post this or not, but here goes nothing...

Does anyone know, why there’s this huge white block on the cover of every US Harper’s Bazaar issue ever since I started to receive my subscription copies? It seems to be non-removable and it’s annoying the heck out of me... The customer service at Hearst offers no help whatsoever.

View attachment 1161021

Thats generally where your address and subscription information goes, but I assume you got those together with other hearst subscriptions you have and you got them in a bag, so they put an address label on bag instead but still have the space on the magazine where information was supposed to go. Its really weird, but thats how it is with US publications. They are almost as cheap as possible.

 

[slayage]

Thank you @jorgepalomo and @SLFC

I do, indeed, get every copy in a plastic bag and the address label is inside the plastic bag on a paper sheet. Sucks that they have to insert the white rectangle on every cover...