Preserving stickers with nail polish

Community Help Section Repairs and Troubleshooting
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I know there are several opinions as to using nail polish or not for preserving stickers.

Would you buy a mint piece where somebody coated the sticker with nail polish? (Neatly)

Do you use nail polish on your more expensive pieces?

Me personally, I use the majority of my pencils daily. I like to swap them out. And I routinely coat the stickers with nail polish when I first get them.
However, I am branching out into more expensive collecting (vintage) NOS pieces, and I don’t plan to use these daily, so looking for advice.

Edit: common sense is telling me “No” but wanted to see what you do with your collection

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I would never do anything to permanently alter a pencil, like tape or nail polish.

For the most part, my pencils are for my collection, with only a couple of my desktop pencils that have stickers, and I don’t do anything to them.

I do have a couple of old 60’s pencils that have stickers that are starting to come off, so I took a small piece of saran wrap, cut it to be a little wider than the sticker and long enough to go around the pencil 2-3 times, then wrap it, and cut it so that it ends on the back. This protects the sticker without altering it or the pencil.

And no, I would never knowingly buy a pencil that had been coated with nail polish.

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Yeah, I’m a hard no on adding anything to a pencil that can’t be removed without a trace.

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I just remove the sticker on all of my pencils, even on the more expensive pieces. I remove it because I’m afraid that over time the sticker will damage the paint, or the paint will wear unevenly.

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Same here. Although I still have several pencils with stickers on them, I’m thinking of taking them off. No nail polish for me.

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I haven’t ever thought of it until reading this post.

I’d steer away from doing it and probably would not buy something that had nail polish on it, if I knew beforehand.

I can see the appeal from a preservation point of view though.

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Personally, I don’t like to alter or modify pencils in any way. Cleaning is okay. I usually only go as far as swapping springs if they are notably preventing a better experience. E.g. I’m positively convinced that if you swap the spring in the OHTO Horizon for a slightly better one it will stop the rattling and wobbling around. I haven’t done it yet, though. I don’t like changing the original circumstances of a piece. If a sticker is wearing out I let it wear out.

Even putting tape inside to silence pencils (yeah I’ve done it) irks me a bit.

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I’ve used a TINY bit of adhesive spray to reapply stickers that’s are rolling off. I NEVER touch anything BUT the bit of sticker peeling off. So far, so good.

I DONT spray them, I spray my finger, tap the back then apply force. None have remotely left a barrel since.

I hope this helps!

Nothing is more annoying than a pristine item destroying itself haha

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