Hi,

A while ago I won an auction for the Ravenloft and Ravenloft II modules on eBay. They're in pretty good shape, but I would like to ask the knowledgeable collectors around The Acaeum whether some of the spots on the covers are mold or simple wear on modules that are over 20 years old.

Here are some pictures:





And here are a couple of close-ups of the areas in question:



Thanks in advance for your help

I was thinking the same.  Also, you can often feel mold.  I am so allergic it's easy to just open it up and sneeze, lol, but also, it frequently easily rubs off on your fingers with sorta black chalky awkward residue.  

That looks like dry dirty spotting, rather than live organic infestation, from the pictures.

ericthecleric wrote:Is the mustyness a precursor to mold?

AFAIK, it already is mildew.  It may be just a musty smell, but I think it's mildew.

How do I get rid of the smell?

Some tips on lessening active mildew are here:

. . . http://www.acaeum.com/library/mold_mildew.html

Remember, as long as the book has mildew, it will have problems.  And it will always have mildew.

I have tried ways to get rid of various smells with varying degrees of success and damage to the item:

• Sunlight and fresh air = Spread out the book pages and leave the book outside for a few days, bringing the item in overnight.  This increases the acid damage/paper yellowing down the road.
• Baking soda = Spread out the book pages in a plastic container.  Put in some baking soda boxes designed for the refrigerator.  Wait one week, and the immediate odor is lessened.
• Odorcide = Spread out the book pages in a plastic container.  Saturate some paper towels with Odorcide.  Wait a week.  The items will be nice-smelling and slightly humidity-warped.  Press the items flat under a stack of DMGs, PHBs, and MMs, and all is well.  The nice smell will fade over time.
• Bleach gets rid of mildew fast.  Ummm, don't use this on valuable items.
• Microwaving allegedly kills mildew.  It doesn't do much for killing the odor.  But it's great at burning holes and finding hidden staples.  

ericthecleric wrote:So I should definitely keep those items away from everything else, and even consider dumping them, as it sounds like I'd never be able to sell them & they're a risk factor to the other books?

IIRC, Pipswich and one or two others know about archival storage, repair, and the like.  Many other resellers have dealt with your problem more often than I have.  One of them will hopefully join this thread before I lead you too far down the merry path.  

Don't do anything you will regret later.  Maybe the smell is just a damp basement smell, or maybe the paper is somehow reacting badly to high humidity.  If the books are rare, expensive, or have a sentimental value, then keep them.  But if you keep them, isolate the items so the presumed mildew spores do not spread.  Store the items in big Ziplock bags until you decide what to do with them --- cover the odor, remove the odor, or remove the mildew?

Sunlight and fresh air followed by confinement with baking soda can work wonders.  Newspaper placed betwen the pages of a book can remove the odor.

As far as being able to sell them . . . that depends on whether or not the books really do have mildew spores in them.  Visible mildew damage makes most sales a non-starter, while a musty smell lowers the price.

I should add that the books (well, and one boxed set) were stored in a box in an outside garage, as far as I know, if that helps.

Mold and mildew are remarkably diverse.  Some will die with subtle variations and others are resistant to death along wide spectrums of light, food source and temperature.  Unfortunately, it can be forced into a state of inactivity with any number of methods and resurface years later when the conditions change.  Or, it can simply and unexpectedly die.  In general, low humidity, moderate to mid range temperatures are safest.  

There are numerous articles online if you type in conservation archives mold mildew remediation freeze drying irradiation  etc as keywords you can learn more than I will ever know about it from scientific journals focused on conservation for archival purposes.  The will not be fun reading for obsessive cleanliness types, germaphobes, or hypocondriacs.  

Here, we probably are mainly concerned about making mold inactive and keeping it inactive so that it is not a health hazard for those of us allergic to it and it is not actively eating our collections.  Freezing is a common solution and although there are strains of mold that resist cold, they are probably not going to be commonly encountered... for instance in Georgia.  If you are in Alaska or the Ukraine, they might be native and you could find that your local mold might die over one summer in Florida...  It is unclear to me that there are easy... or any answers that will satisfy everyone.  I bet none of us want to think about the fact that we live with mold, dust mites, and thousands of germs and parasites every day of our lives... it's more a matter of keeping the situation manageable than creating a sterile environment.  

For sure though, if it smells, is black/red/brown/green/ bumpy, chalky, hairy, fuzzy, or oil slick smooth...  the average collector or consumer is not gonna like it at all and quarantine or disposal is in order.

Dimitri Mazieres wrote:The only part where I can see what appears to be some rubbing off of I10's inside cover is here:

*nods* To me it looks more like rubbing than mildew.  However, the small, dark spots along the same horizontal as "PLOT" worry me.  Are they pencil marks?

If you want to make a destructive test, take some bleach and blot some of the rubbing and spots. If they disappear after a few seconds, then they are probably mold.  If the marks don't disappear, then they are dirt or ink.  Probably not worth the effort to check if that's all you can see; you'll water-damage and bleach-damage the pages for little gain.

And as for smell, this may sound ridiculous, but to me they smell like AD&D/AD&D 2e books.  
Does that mean that I don't have to worry about my other books withering under the menace of mold?

Someone else may be able to smell the mildew if you can't.   Check the marks in a few years and see if they have spread.  

davidc wrote:Hello Gang,

I'd really appreciate input re this..

I have a mold concern.

I can't say for certain if it's spread over the last little while.

It has no odour (that I can detect)

It doesn't scrape away (say, with a fingernail), though disinfectant wipes go right thru it as well as the paper.

Mostly, it's the dot on the page facing the back cover that makes me fear the worst.

If it's mold should I: double bag it and put it back in the collection... or, keep it - but far away... or, burn it, quick... or, sell it 'as is'  

Seriously, I'm grateful for the group's thoughts.

Thanks  

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It could be someones grape soda exploded, but it does look like mold.

Mold spores can survive ice ages. Once you have a colony there is always the chance that they are dormant rather than dead.

Seperate it from the rest of your collection at the very least.

SoulCatcher78 wrote:Fire, Fire, Fire

[/Beavis]

Seriously, it does look like a mold issue.  Quarantine it at the very least, nuke from orbit just to be sure.