If I've never mentioned it before, I hate people. I really do. I have this sheet of 1976 2's that my grandfather recently bestowed onto me. It's been in a frame for at least 20 years, maybe all it's life. Who knows. As the title of the thread will point out, somebody put tape on the bills to keep them in the frame. I don't know what to do. The tape obviously shouldn't be there in the first place, but would it be more hazardous to try to remove it? I just feel like I need a more seasoned collector's opinion in this case. Having issues uploading attachments... Hang on a sec. EDIT: Huh, I guess they're there. Weird.
I am no expert but being what the $2.00 is made of and all other currency Rag Paper it may come right off without a scratch. I think I would put some scotch tape on a dollar bill maybe and heat it up a tad . That may be about the same as the years this tape has been on these and see what happens it may stick to the papper more than the Bill.
Given the method of attachment, I suspect the matting isn't archival, which potentially could stain the edges of the sheet. A paper conservator may be able to help with the tape residue.
Scrapbookers have a variety of products that they use to remove adhesive stickers and tape from paper items. My wife uses GooGone but it smells like oranges. You should be able to find a similar solvent that will not make your notes smell like fruit. I also recommend practicing on a dollar from your pocket first.
Update: I tried one of the corners, with the least amount of tape on it, acting very slowly and gingerly. No tears! However, there is some residue on the sheet that as of this point is still a bit sticky. Also, where the residue is, the sheet is a slight bit darker. Could be from being "wet" and sticky, could be from years of contact. Might be reversible, I don't rightly know. I'm thinking the residue will dry, and might leave some slight discoloration. I'm guessing that's probably not the end of the world if that's what happens, but should I try to remove residue with some sort of product? Lettow mentioned this, and I'm guessing if done properly, all will be good in the world.
My experience with a similar situation is the adhesive will darken the contact areas as you commented on if there was Moisture trapped there i dont think you will be able to fix or get that back to an original state just be careful
That's kinda what I figured, but I'm glad to have outside opinions. Hopefully it doesn't affect the value too much. They're stars, but none of 'em have a particularly interesting serial number. I figure $200 is all it's worth. Not bad, but not great.
Is that right? I don't doubt it. Like I may have mentioned elsewhere, paper isn't my forte. Anyway, I got the tape off. Some discoloration on contact marks, but no tearing or evident lifting of ink or material off of the sheet, so that's a relief.
Reminds me of my friend in the 1960s. He collected the entire set of Addams Family non-sports cards and glued them to a piece of cardboard. OUCH!!!
If it doesnt get into the ink too muck I would say that using industrial acetone will remove the residue & not harm the note. I have done it before with great results. Try you hand at it with a regular note that you dont mind if it gets damaged . Use a Q tip & dip it ,peel the tape back on a corner & then work the acetone to the tape as you peel it back . Should be just fine.
I've removed tape from 150 year old obsoletes and 200+ year old colonials without much trouble - patience and a quality blade (razor) should be all that is needed. Avoid chemicals unless a true last resort as you will have no idea how it react with the tape compound. Heat may help but it should be MILD heat, body heat at most I would recommend as again, the heat can affect the adhesive and might cause it to color.
I would most certainly listen to MEC2 as he's a paper fanatic. However, I had this exact situation myself a couple of years ago and used a hairdryer to "slightly" heat up the tape and it came right off. There was a little residue left, but a razor blade and lint free cloth took it off with no problems.
I would wonder if the bills might be faded from being "on display" for many years - guess it would depend if they'd been in direct sunlight or not.... You might be able to tell if the reverse of the bill was brighter than the front.
I'll check, but I'm not terribly concerned about that. My understanding is that they were on display for some time in his home office, but his children are, uh... let's say less than repuatable, so he put them in a bank vault or something like that for at least a decade.
Might be hard to tell, they are different colors, the backs are green the fronts are black. Are those just four note sheets? Back when the Fed started selling the uncut sheets at first all they sold were full sheets (32 notes) of ones. later whe they decided to add $2 notes they didn't have any regular production run full size sheets of twos but they had a large supply of uncut half sheet (16 note) star notes and that was what they sold. And they were originally sold in half sheets only. I notice that the four note sheets you show have the serial number starting with 99 just as the uncut dollar sheets do. Those numbers are not used on notes for circulation, only on the uncut sheets for collectors. (The star not sheets aren't like that.) Apparently at some point they must have run out of the 16 note star sheets and done some production of 1976 sheets for collectors (Circulation sheet production of twos did not recommence until the 1995 series I think.) If so I did not know about those. But the initial sales of 1976 series twos (16 note) were all star notes to the best of my knowledge.
Right...they started selling the $2 half-sheets to get rid of all the extra star notes that were left over when the printing of 1976 $2's was cut short when they failed to catch on with the public. It took most of a decade to sell all those star sheets, but they finally ran out of them in the late '80s, and began printing non-star sheets for collector sales just like they do with $1's. Those non-star sheets were available in full 32-subject format and also in smaller sizes.
