Removing Permanent Marker from G3’s

[sweetstuff85]

Hello!

I’m a little upset I bought about 25 G3’s from a seller on FB market place they all looked like they were in great played with condition. The ponies were relatively cheap, I payed about 168 USD, which was great.

The only issue was that the seller wrote the names of the ponies in permanent marker on scotch tape and place them onto the pony. I told them to be careful because that will transfer and to take the tape off immediately, or at the very least before they ship them.

They agreed, all seemed fine.

They arrived today, 2 months later because of a shipping issue, (seller forgot my unit number so they never delivered and got shipped back to the seller) They finally arrived BUT they have marker all over them, probably about 80 percent of them have marks, I also found one piece of tape still stuck to a pony, with most of the marker smudged off.

I checked the original pictures when the ponies still had the tape on them and the marks are not there, so some of the marks must have bend transferred when they were taking off the pieces of tape and placing them in the bags to ship. There were three bags and only 1 bag had a pony with tape still on it, so all the marks are not due to that one piece of tape, but due to the seller removing the tape.

I just wish the seller was transparent with me, stating they got ink all over the ponies when they removed the pieces of tape. I had even warned them twice about this. If I knew this I probably would have backed out as I know permanent marker is almost impossible to remove.

I sent them a huge (nice) message about my disappointment just now, with evidence of the before and after pictures, and the piece of tape that arrived in one of the bags that was all smeared.

I’m a little sad, BUT I was hoping you all can help me.

A lot of people talk about developer cream, I think it’s 40%, they use that under a UV light to remove permanent ink stains, I think?

Is this true? Does it work? And if so, what cream brand do I buy and what percentage? how long do I use it for and do all colours of ponies work with this cream or will it bleach them?!

Thanks for your help in advance.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

That's the worst! I bought a pony locally that had her price applied the same way.

I'm actually not a developer cream advocator. I'd like to see more information about how it works to help combat stains, since sunfading by itself works just fine for me! You can try to sunfade the marks, either using a UV light or by placing them outside in sun and watching them. Be warned that this may yellow the plastic-I did successfully remove pen marks from a white G3 through sunfading without cream, but parts of her body are now a bit more yellow.

This may take a long while depending on how much sun is in your area. I've not been successful using a UV light yet, but I haven't been trying for a while, maybe I'll have to give it a spin again. I love this sunfading tutorial.

[sweetstuff85]

Thank-you, I’ll look into sun fading too. I’m in. Vancouver Canada and usually we have mostly rain by this time, but weirdly enough it’s really sunny, so perhaps I’ll try to start asap.

Still curious to hear Move about developer creams as well if anyone has more info or a site I can look at. The MLP restoration didn’t have anything about developer creams.

[maycrestmom]

I'm familiar with sunfading and most marks go bye just takes time

there are IMO alot of good tutorials on the developer and UV method so I would say watch youtube and decide if you want to go that route

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFAVwFpIzZc

I posted this vid to show that there was some bleaching effect so I would be wary of fading a pony

[sweetstuff85]

Thanks!!

I’ll look into both.

Cheers!

[Snapdragon]

Oh, that's just heartbreaking. I've gotten ponies before where someone wrote the price ON the pony (WHY!) but at least those seemed to be grease pencil or crayon, not ... Sharpie.

I actually came into this thread out of curiosity, because I recently got a lot with a ton of Sharpie-decorated ponies in it! (On purpose, LOL!) I'll be giving the sunfading route a try! My primary attempt was acetone, but even used liberally, it only removed the top (undried, cringe!) layer of the Sharpie, and mostly just smeared it around. Ugh!

[lovesbabysquirmy]

slow and steady sunfading.

try inside a car!  the heat helps