How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

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HerveM
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How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by HerveM » Wed Apr 26, 2017 12:42 pm

I have a few tricks where the cards have turned yellow by time.
Someone knows a way to turn white them?
I saw that some used talc or bircarbonate of soda but I would like to avoid removing all the colors :shock:

Your opinion ?

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Steve S.
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by Steve S. » Wed Apr 26, 2017 2:21 pm

If you are talking about cardboard cards that came with various tricks, I am affraid there is nothing practical you can do.

If you are talking about playing card stock, I am affraid there is nothing practical you can do for that either.

Sometimes, trying to fix things only makes them worse or destroys them altogether. It may be best to leave well enough alone.

Like pages of books, age is not kind to paper or most other things for that matter.

What you can do is to build the yellowing into your patter as ancient relics or some other historical sort of thing.

Age hasn't been all that kind to me either come to think of it! :lol:
It's a Tenyo day in the neighborhood!

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David DeTenyo
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by David DeTenyo » Wed Apr 26, 2017 2:40 pm

Indeed Steve.
From a chemical point of view you can't do anything without damaging the cards as far as It know.

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VictorS
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by VictorS » Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:05 pm

Hi Herve,

Thanks so much for raising this issue. I have the same problem as you do unfortunately :(

I got this nice cards created by Hiroshi Kondo - Shot In The Dark about more than 10 years ago and most of them are becoming yellow unfortunately. At the first time I got, they were all white. The front side is becoming almost 100% yellow now but not on the back. We still can see white colors at some of the areas. I think we can do nothing about this but since they are plastic cards, I assume heat is 1 of the factor of the color transposition. Plastic is very sensitive material that can react with the heat, that why we have also same issue with our Tenyo props. So it is important to protect them from sunlight and heat.

About the normal playing cards made from paper, I think it takes longer to change color. But still they need extra protection . I stored all my gaff cards in the card collector plastic sheets. We can store 9 different of cards in 1 sheet which has 9 compartment, 1 card to each compartment. The size fits to the poker size playing cards. I think the size should be similar to baseball cards or other collection cards. All sheets come into a folder for better storage management.

We could have also packet tricks and most of the packet trick come with more than 1 cards. It is still possible to store them into the plastic sheets but I made a small envelopes to store packet tricks and label them for identification and easy search. All envelopes come into a box.

I`m still not sure if this is the correct method to store cards. But this is the best I can do at the moment. Humidity is one of serious issue here and effected also to some of my books (or cards). Once we had also the discussion here : viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1943&hilit=book

Maybe we need to think now in reverse. How to change all cards in yellow so they will look the same /vintage. :) :)
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HerveM
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by HerveM » Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:59 am

Thanks to all your replies.

I suspected a little that there were no solutions and I was right not to test the solutions based on baking soda or talc ;) You confirmed!

I looked a little more and the yellowing is due to the lignin: for instance, http://science.howstuffworks.com/question463.htm

Except a very good quality of the papar, the paper turns yellow.
To protect it, it must be protected from light and oxygen and humidity.

There is no miracle recipe :(
Steve S. wrote:...If you are talking about playing card stock, I am affraid there is nothing practical you can do for that either.
Yes, i'm talking about playing cars, I apologize for vocabulary problems and phrases not always relevant 8-)
Steve S. wrote:Age hasn't been all that kind to me either come to think of it! :lol:
Ok, I'll consider it's like my wrinkles, impossiboe to remove :lol:
VictorS wrote: Maybe we need to think now in reverse. How to change all cards in yellow so they will look the same /vintage. :) :)
Hi Victor, maybe it''s the good way to think :)
Last edited by HerveM on Sat Apr 29, 2017 9:58 am, edited 2 times in total.

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David DeTenyo
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by David DeTenyo » Sat Apr 29, 2017 5:12 am

My Shot in the dark trick also has some yellowish cards. They white ones slowsly start to become yellow too.

Need to speed them up turning yellow as Victor sais - good advice! :)

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VictorS
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by VictorS » Sat Apr 29, 2017 5:56 am

David DeTenyo wrote:My Shot in the dark trick also has some yellowish cards. They white ones slowsly start to become yellow too.

Need to speed them up turning yellow as Victor sais - good advice! :)
Sorry to hear that David. At least I know that I am not the one who have this problem. Any idea how do we speed up the "vintaging" process ? Just lay them under sunlight, wait and see until they have similar tone of color ? :)

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David DeTenyo
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Re: How to turn white card turned yellow by time ?

Post by David DeTenyo » Sat Apr 29, 2017 6:12 am

Yep - (UV) light is the key to make white stuff yellow :)
Wanna go super fast? Lay them in/on a solarium for a minute or 10 and see what happens ... the cards will get a nice suntan :D

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