Shellac on Ball

[Zach Wheat]

I am relatively new to this side (mostly on the pre-war side) but wondered what the best approach is to increase the visual appeal of a heavily shellacked ball. I suspect most would say leave it as is....but the ball is an early 20's ball and has some nice auto's. The ball has some thick coats of yellowed shellac on it. Is it advisable to remove some layers of shellac to increase visibility? Would this affect the value of the ball?

I plan on keeping the ball (as opposed to selling) so anything I do would be purely for my purposes.

Any direction you can give me would be appreciated.

MWheat

[BrandonG]

You'll never be able to remove the shellac in layers. the shellac bonds with whatever ink it was covering, it usually makes the ink appear darker, that's why I'm sure you have some solid signatures on the ball. But the instant you start to sand off the shellac you're going to regret it. The ink will most definitely come off with it. Even if you're delicately wet sanding or fine sanding all you're going to have is a matte finished shellac ball.

Sorry for the bad info, but I've seen people try this over and over and they always come up regretting it and saying 'should have left it be".

Pictures?

[Zach Wheat]

OK, thanks. I wasn't thinking about a complete removal of the shellac, just some of the layers. I had heard there was a solvent that dissolves shellac. It isn't bad "as is" and will probably keep it that way.

MWheat

[steve B]

Alcohol dissolves shellac. Denatured alcohol is used as it contains no or nearly no water. Alcohol makes it dry clear, water makes it cloudy- why coasters are needed on shallac finished furniture.

But trying to remove shellac from a ball with good autographs isn't something I'd try. As Brandon said the shellac partially bonds to the ink. (Probably technically the other way around as the inks for fountain pens are dye in a water/detergent carrier- but that's just splitting hairs, the end result is the same.) The pen ink on leather actually dyes it, but the dyes don't really get dry for some time. When shellaced some of the dye migrates into the shellac, which is slightly soluble in water. . How much depends on how deeply the dye got into the leather. And that's inconsistent.
Plus the shellac also gets into the pores of the leather. So trying to remove part of the shellac will also remove some of the autograph, and it will probably come out blotchy, more white in areas where the leather is less porous.

It's possible a trained person like a restorer/conservator with a light touch could gradually remove a little of the shellac. But I'm thinking it would be a slow process, several hours over a few days. And even then the results might not be all that good.

That ball actually looks pretty nice as-is, and the shellac isn't doing any real damage. Just keep it clean and out of strong sunlight. Shellac darkens over time and with strong sunlight exposure.

Steve B

[Zach Wheat]

OK, I decided to leave the ball alone....but while viewing the autographs, I noticed an unidentified autograph on a 1923 Yankees team ball. It looks like it says "BB Johnson" who was the comissoner at the time the signatures on this ball were attirbuted to.

The C of A from Spence does not indicate a Ban Johnson sig.

Opinions please? Does this look like Ban Johnson's auto?

[David Atkatz]

It's a stamp. It's on every OAL of that era.

[Zach Wheat]

OK, great. Thanks David. Thanks also for the kind reply Chris.