Conservation

Foxing

Manchas de óxido (foxing)

Foxing is brown or reddish spotting of paper, often in dots, attributed to oxidation, moisture, or microbial activity on the fibres. It is not circulation soil or a stamp. In notaphily it lowers eye appeal and, if the paper was washed to hide it, it can cost EPQ or bring a Details grade. A slab does not remove foxing: it documents it under plastic. It is not coin toning either, which is a layer on metal; foxing belongs to paper.

The 1994 Emberá 10,000-peso record names it carefully: the watermark margin of 00113227 shows two foxing spots; that of 00249902, slight yellowing. A PMG census for those serials is not invented; both notes are in sleeves, unslabbed. Even ageing yellow is not the same as foxing spots. The collector describes what the photograph shows, without “improving” the paper with solvents: that alteration is exactly what PMG treats as a loss of originality.

On proofs and specimens foxing also appears — archive paper is not exempt — but it is not asserted here on the Hipotecario PMG 61 or on the uniface Giori if their records do not register it. The term helps in reading population and grade: an AU with foxing is not a UNC. Preventive care — an inert sleeve, stable humidity, no acidic adhesives — is the only treatment this collection recommends. Nothing documented here is for sale, spotted or not.

Foxing does not licence a home wash or an inflated grade. If a future slab cited stains or denied EPQ, that label would be transcribed; today those two Emberá pieces have none. The watermark article explains why the spots show in the margin: it is the palest zone of the sheet, not a stamp.

See also: Uncirculated (UNC) , EPQ (Exceptional Paper Quality)

← Back to the glossary