I recently acquired a very nice 1934D silver certificate. It has a checkmark written in pencil on one corner. Is it safe to try to remove it with a soft eraser? If I did that would someone be able to tell?
I have some that have pencil on them aswell. I have just left them alone. I think if you tried to get it off, it would just smudge and damage the paper quality.
No doubt that is done with a #2 pencil, which is about 95% of all pencils. What I would suggest doing is getting a newer FRN and doing the same mark on it, then trying a gum based eraser, with NO abrasives or sand in it like most erasers have in them. I know that these gum based erasers exist because I trained as a draftsman in school, and we used them to remove pencil marks with out abrading the paper underneath them. The whole point is - try it out on something else first and see what the result is. If you are not satisfied with the results, then you have not damaged the good note. When doing the gum based eraser, the best way to perform it is in one direction towards the corner of the note to minimize or eliminate the possibility of spreading the graphite from the pencil. That all said, if you do not feel any bit of comfort trying this, don't. There is nothing hurt by leaving it just as it is. I have some older Scottish notes with biro or pencil marks on them and I just leave them alone, figuring it gives them character.
Thanks to all for the suggestions. The note didn't cost a lot, so I'll leave it as is. I might try out the gum eraser on a newer note that has no extra value.
i would leave it as others have said.. never know what a gummy eraser would do to the quality of the paper.
As the note shows wear and tear. Any attempt to erase the pencil will also remove dirt from the paper. You may think the paper looks clean, but it will always look cleaner after you erase it. While removing the pencil MAY improve the notes appearance, it will always leave evidence that an eraser was taken to it. Just like coins, knowledgable collectors will avoid it.
Look at the two images Snaz....you can see 3 vertical marks -vs- 2 vertical marks. 2 is the narrow variety....there were sizing issues with these notes back then and the resulting corrections are know as the "narrow variety" Narrow is more prefered than "wide"..the one on the left (red arrow) is wide...the right narrow...you can see the lines... I do not have my notes with me to scan and enlarge...so I just used an example Snaz... ( lll = wide) (ll = narrow) from the arrow count left to the end of the tooling work... RickieB
Nice note but as the others have stated, best to leave it as be. Any attempt to change it will affect it's future value. And as you got it reasonably, that should be satisfying enough.
Just a thought. Got SILLY PUTTY? We used to use it on newsprint like the Sunday comics and it would take the image from the printed page. Push it down on the mark and peel it straight up without rubbing. Again, as others have said, try anything on spending money first.
I would not suggest that either... the chemicals in silly putty will be absorbed via the Paper and will therefore cause a stain of a different kind! Good thought...but not so good of an application..... I recall doing that as well...the ink would just jump from the newspaer to the putty..LOL RickieB
