A 100 year old RP postcard picture dissolved before my eyes?

[Bobbie Carnegie]

I thought that immersing a 100 year old+ RP (real photo) postcard in water would assist me to soak off marring patches stuck to the postcard that obscured a particular collectable photo postcard's right side edge. Once satisfactorily soaked 'marring bits' stuck to the photo could be picked off - thus, enabling restoration of my old RP postcard of the famous early 1900s violinist Jan Kubelick (of which I have a varied collection of his image as a child prodigy and into adulthood as the renowned violinist) to something of a satisfactory photo postcard (c.1910) collectable completeness. Further (before the disaster to ensue) I thought photo images were photographically 'fixed'. Or, was it that I made the disastrous mistake of boiling a kettle of which 'hot water' I poured over 'the to be restored 100 year old+ RP postcard' laid in a Pyrex glass dish - and to my horror saw the image immediately dissolve away before my eyes. I lifted the card out of its hot solution and the lovely Victorian image, smeared and smarmed, drained away terribly of its positive photographic life leaving a ghost of its former self.

1.%20Jan%20Kubelik%20.jpg 

2.%20Jan%20Kubelik%20.jpg       

[Bobbie Carnegie]

Ah Well! At least I have managed to digitally preserve my 'dissolved original' to a digital original that's had its marring bits digitally dissolved.