Some people like to keep the price tags on their books to remind them of the book’s provenance. I’m not one of them.
Aside from being a compulsive plastic coverer (I can’t read a book that has not been covered in protective plastic), I’m a price sticker remover, and whenever I buy a new book my nails automatically itch to scrape off the price sticker. It just drives me crazy.
The problem is most price stickers are awfully sticky, and peeling them off takes forever, especially when the adhesive is so sticky that you can’t peel the sticker off as a whole (bookstores, please, do something about this!) and ten minutes later you’re left with a smudgy, sticky mess. It’s also annoying when the price sticker eats into the cover, leaving you with an ugly squarish patch (which is a regular occurence at my favorite bargain bookstore), or lifts some of the gloss from a brand new book.
Because I keep my nails short, they don’t offer much leverage when picking at price stickers, especially the really stubborn ones that refused to budge. So eventually I had to resort to other removal procedures.
Here are are two methods I use to remove price stickers.