Strip Cards, To Clean or Not to Clean?

[Leon]

As you know, 100 years old paper crumbles easily. If there are marks you want to get off you can always try a Mars Plastic Eraser and they work well. I have used them on just about everything. And as you know by now, some of those series of strip cards can have some very valuable cards...Good luck and keep us updated if you can.

Originally Posted by Flyingace

Thank you for your quick replies, fellas.
In the interest of full disclosure again, I have some experience restoring and conserving paper ephemera, historic documents and other material. Each card set represents a different cleaning challenge because of the differences between papers; sometimes even within sets there is no uniformity. I guess the printers in Hoboken, etc. just chose what they had, and if a product changed packaging, another cardboard was used to print the cards. There are also some minor differences in printing inks and finishing, which poses less of a problem.
There are a lot of strip cards here, over 500. They were alphabetized by player last name, put into card pages, inventoried, and put into a heavy duty notebook. Condition runs the gamut: Many were cut disregarding borders, by family members when they were kids over 75 yrs ago, some edges were ripped instead of cut, and some are in very good condition. The HOFers and rarities have been isolated on pages, and needless to say, get the most care.
These strip cards consist of W502s, 503, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 519, 520, 521, 522, 551, a few Big Heads, 9316, maybe a couple of 461s, and a few others. It looks like the kids' collecting emphasis was on the players, not the card series or team, although there may be 1 or 2 complete sets. That would explain the many different strip card series' here.
Your answers agree the cards should be cleaned, but of course carefully. Any other general advice you can give me, i.e. to emphasize that cleaning will greatly enhance the value of the cards? Again, thank you so much.