Anything green is a candidate; the green can fade. This from our conservator, who consulted with the Winterthur people.
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They might make a good present for your in-laws… 
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This is really interesting- thank you for sharing, I’m fascinated by technical history like this.
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I assume it’s lower maintenance than something more volatile; but I’m honestly surprised that mercury would work in that context. It’s a deeply alarming material in one’s capacity as a user of a complex nervous system hoping to get some decades of relatively trouble-free operation out of it; but mercury has a pretty low vapor pressure and tepid bioavailability until somebody goes and methylates it, which seems like a situation where the pests would be able to get in and eat your specimens long before they knew they were supposed to be poisoned.
I’m not going to argue with historical facts on theoretical grounds; but if I’d had to guess I would have leaned toward some Edwardian grandparent of Lewisite.
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For anyone concerned, Winterthur says that it’s books published in the 1840’s and 1860’s, so later than that is probably safe. They start out as bright green, but can fade to brownish.
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The author
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Yeah, the database of confirmed samples doesn’t contain books from the 1870s or later. I may pick up a color swatch when they reprint it. I don’t trust a zoom conference call to properly convey the proper shades.
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