Discoloration / Fading of Soft Plastic

[Kenton K]

Hello,

I'm trying to assemble a picture guide on how soft plastic fades and I want your help! I know soft and hard plastics fade differently and this will be helpful for anybody making ebay purchases.

I'll start with rose beige. I got this handset on a black painted telephone. The inside is good undated while the outside is the sickly flesh color.

Kk

[jsowers]

OK, here you go. I looked through some pictures and picked out the faded dark (rose) beiges. This color, more than any other soft plastic color, has some serious fade issues as you will see. I don't know what causes certain parts to fade and others not, but these phones came this way to me and a collector friend of mine. They weren't assembled from spare parts.

Side by side shot: Three different shades of dark beige. The housing of the phone on the right may be the actual color it's supposed to be, and the dial face and handset except for one cap are the dead flesh shade. This phone is from 1957 and has the correct color-matching cords. I first thought this fading was an early color issue, but obviously not with the date on this phone. The phone on the left is faded lighter except on the handset where it was held, where it still looks a little rosy. It also resembles dead flesh, but it's more consistently faded.

Back: The back of the 1957 phone. The little insert under the switchhook also faded. This can't be from UV because it just doesn't get in there.

Two-tone: This one may be smoke faded. The sticker between the switchhook may have protected it. Most of the fading came out with bleach on this one.

[unbeldi]

You guys have to be clear about terms.

FADING is different than DISCOLORATION.

For color, fading is decreasing intensity, and comes from loss or destruction of pigments.  This can be from bleaching, either through chemical processes on the surface by which pigments are destroy or by UV radiation.

I think what you are talking about is discoloration.  This is quite different, because it happens not from destruction of pigment, but by addition of additional ones or perhaps modification. In telephones the discoloration happens from the additives to the plastic that were meant to retard the production of flames in fires.  The vast majority of such additives contained bromine compounds, bromides.  Unfortunately over time the bromine in these is set free and its intense color causes the discoloration.

The only phones I have witnessed to fade are the pastel 500 colors, aqua blue and pink, where it can be done with bleach, and they become almost white.  The other color plastic I have found to fade, is the plastic of old rose 302s. These are actually very translucent, and it appears that sunlight destroys the pigments throughout the bulk of the plastic, not just on the surface.  I have or had 4 or 5 old rose sets, and they all have a different intensity of color. One is extremely translucent already in some places.