Dear Donia,
How do I restore authographs?
Q. Dear Donia,
II have a baseball that has signatures from the entire Yankees baseball team yankees. Is there a way to restore the signatures, and, if so, who do I go to? In addition, I have a document with autographs from the entire L.A. Lakers team. is there a way to restore the signatures on this document, and, if so, who do I go to? Thanks, Derrick
A. Dear Derrick,
What wonderful souvenirs to have but I am so sorry to hear the writing is fading!
Not knowing the age of the ball or the paper, nor what ink or what varieties of ink were used, make this a difficult question to answer. However, the best thing to do would be to get high-quality digital photographs using different sources of light such as UV and Infrared. With multiple spectrums of light you should be able to make the writing visible again to create a high-quality facsimile. These facsimiles can be displayed so that the originals can be stored away from light sources and thus prevent them from fading further.
I am sorry I cannot give you a way to restore the writing but light damage is irreversible and conservation ethics prevent us from enhancing the writing by any physical means.