Every summer, the town I live in , shuts down main street on Friday nights, detours traffic and has a little street show of varying venues, sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce.. Two of these venues are for Hot Rods and Antique cars,... As in most little old towns,.. there are a number of street corner vender's of varying item loosely related to what the venue is,.... usually set up on small card tables in front of there store front,.. or a friends place,.... Last September was the Antique Car show,... I had totally forgotten about, until I was going to drive through town,.. only to be detoured. I find a place to park on a side street and start to walk up to Houghton Ave. On the sidewalk I came up to a elderly Couple sitting behind there card table, with old issues of Popular Mechanics, Look, Life, American Rifleman,... You get the picture,... Just as I am about to walk by, I see the old man with a stack of Little Hot Rod Magazines,... I stop dead in my tracks,... And ask the old man How much they are,.... He said "well the price on the covers is 25 or 35 cents each,..... How about",...... And before he could say another word,... The Old lady snaps to life and blurts out "We gott'a get a buck each,... cause there old !!!!". (She never cracked a smile all the time I was there,... five foot, one inch of pure MEAN !) We counted them out,.... 24 of them,... She says,... I'll go 20 bucks if ya' take em' all,... I said SOLD !,... I peel out a 20,.. and she snaps it up like a Bear Trap !!!!,.... They had a slight musty oder but they were a really good hit for $20.00,.... She puts them in a bag and I was on my way,.. when she yells out "Hey You !!!,... ( I look back),.. Yeah I'm talking to You !!!" I walk back as I see the old man and woman having a small, quiet, guarded argument,.... She says,... Theres more where they came from !,... ( The old man started to object,... But she shot lightning out of her eyes at him,.. and he sank back into his subservient, hen pecked mode). Are ya' interested ? I said "well I would like to see them",.... She said we got more than twice that amount,... But they will cost ya' another 20,.... Finally the old man objected,... "We'll take 10 dollars for what is left",... She gave him a icy stare,... Then he said,... I found them !,.... and the tension was broken. She said,... Well okay, but ya' pay me up front !!!,... I figured,... what the heck,.. and handed her another ten,... *SNAP* (Then made sure all my fingers were still there),..... I thought she was walking to the garage,.... But she stoped at the garbage can,.... ,.... She open the lid reached in and pulled out two paper market bags,... and brings them to me,.... "Here ya' go sonny !!" then she laughed. As I am walking away,..... I figure out why they were in the trash,.... Now I don't have allergies, but that aroma of musty old magazines hit my nostrils,... and my eyes started watering,... my nose started running,.. instant headache ,... All the bells and whistles,...... So here you go,... pictures of the first 24,...
And here are the rest of the stinky little buggers,...... The first 24 aren't to bad,... I put them in a Tupperware container with a couple dryer sheets,.... they still smell,.. but not to bad. The rest of these smell like mildew !!!!,.. somebody told me to put them in a plastic box with activated charcoal ,.... I have never seen a few of these titles,.. and every time I open them,... My eyes start to water,.... And I can't see NOTHIN' !! Anybody got a sure cure way to save my 10 dollar bag of garbage ???? ,... Help needed.
Sounds like Ma and Pa Kettle are still kick'n, great story... the mags bring back memories of spending weekends at my G'ma's looking through my pops childhood dresser which was full of fifties R&C's. Unfortunately hurricane Fredrick in 79 took'em all but I can remember some of the covers from these, awesome find!!!
The one thing you want to be sure to not do is stack them with any of your other magazines until you get them taken care of. The mold/mildew can spread to other magazines. We've had some luck with a few old sign magazines letting them "air dry" in the sun for a few days - you want to make sure it's a warm dry day though. An old book trick is to put them in a ziploc bag and put them in your freezer for a few days. Unless you can kill the cause of the odor it'll always hang in there.
Sounds like my girlfriend's parents. Her dad had a good 100 or so old jazz records from the 50's and 60's. Her mom just decided that he didn't need them anymore, and boxed them up, and gave them to the local college. Both me and the GF were pretty mad, mostly because he was a old school jazz enthusist, and she did that to him. But also because we wanted them! The only upside, is that maybe some kid at the college will learn to appreciate the classics.
Oh yeah,... I left that out,... and this reminded me. He wasn't into cars at all,... they had found them in the gable of there garage, they had bought the house in the early 70's. and had just recently found them.
get a big can of dry coffee creamer, open it and put it in a sealed container with the books, try not to stack them on top on each other, the dry creamer acts as a desicant and will draw out the moisture.
Mildew is a type of mold - you need some sort of biocide to kill it. UV light perhaps? The usual methods of heat and bleach are not suitable...
damn! Nice score! Complete with the old basement smell... I have this mental picture of Grandma Walton I can't get rid of.
My son and I had a good laugh at this one. Just imagining the old bitty, LOL!! Gotta love them grumpy old women, and the poor bastard that put up with her all those years. Found this article on getting rid of the smell. http://www.ehow.com/how_5553683_mildew-smell-out-magazines.html Might give it a try. Nice find on the old mag's, with the exception of the stink,
I asked them if there was any other hot rod related items they might have found,.. the old man smiled, shook his head and said, no,.... The old lady bared her teeth and growled.
Ive got the issue of 'Sparkin' Bottom left Corner. Think I gave 10 bucks for a pile of paper at an auction, This and some other single shhet adds from the era. Jeff
Sometimes nice guys finish first. Good for you. Activated charcoal and baking soda will help with the smell, but as has been said, you need to find a way to kill the mildew without hurting the paper. Maybe a library or a book collector has an idea.
Good story. The little town I live in also shuts down main street the last Friday every summer month for a meeting of gearheads. Never can tell what will show up, or how many, but its a good venue for that first time out in a project. Lots of good eateries on both sides of the street for dinner, good people to talk to, makes a nice evening. BTW, my wife is a transplanted Yooper born in Wakefield, we visit family up there.
Great story and a well spent 30 bucks. I have a few of those issues that I bought new including the Rodding and Restyling with the the green coupe on it. Since most of my magazines have been stored out in the shed I had better find a deal on a truckload of baking soda and activated charcoal.
Since you are very susceptible to mold aggravation I would recommend scanning each magazine into your computer and making up some cds with the complete scans on them for your files. Then you can enjoy them at your leisure. Then carefully package the magazines and SEND THEM TO ME! Seriously, there isn'tmuch that can be done and with your reactions to this exposure you need to save the mags electronically and sell them to someone at the next streetfest.
We get a good number of old magazines and books into our shop. Although success depends on the severity of the mold damage, I have actually had good luck cleaning up moldy books with the following tips: First, mold requires some moisture to grow, so the first step is always to dry the item thoroughly. If it is a book, stand it upright and fan it open, giving it any support necessary to prevent the boards from becoming bent. If you need to hold many pages open, lay the book on its back and slip a long-toothed comb into the bottom end of the pages to lift and separate them. Leave it in a warm dry place for a day or two - out of direct sunlight. Once dry, I use a dry sponge or clean rag to wipe all surfaces clean. Do this outside! To remove the smell, I have had good luck with commercial aerosol anti-fungal sprays, and plain old sunlight. As sunlight can yellow paper, don't leave things out more than an hour or so - even less for newsprint. To treat a book with the spray, I set it on the foot and fan the pages open. Then spray very very lightly from a distance of about 4-5 feet. Allow plenty of time to dry completely - you don't want the chemical smell any more than the mold smell. Once treated and dried, I brush again with the dry sponge, set the item aside and check it again in a day or two to see if it needs further attention. If the mold has actually eaten away chunks of the paper, the item may be too damaged to save. In these cases, I always check to see if there are individual images worth salvaging, or even sound pages which might find a market among collage artists. We have also air dried books outside on sunny, breezy day for 3 hrs. or more. Once dry to touch,brush off mildew with dry cloth. To remove stains on books, wipe gently w/ soft cloth dipped in solution of 1 part chlorine bleach to 4 parts water (wring it well 1st). Repeat process using another soft cloth dipped in clear water to gently sponge away the chlorine; don't rub or oversaturate the paper. Pat or fan-dry the pages. You can speed up the drying process by sprinkling baking soda on each page to absorb remaining moisture, then wipe it off with a soft clean paintbrush. We then take archival tissue paper and put it between each page. Archival tissue is tissue specifically mad without acids or inks, and is available on the internet. Google can help you find it. Good luck!
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