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Saw a guy at my shop bring in 50 comics to get graded and realized I've been storing mine all wrong
I was at Midtown Comics in New York last Saturday picking up my pulls when this dude walks in with a whole short box of Silver Age books. He was getting them pressed and graded by CBCS. I asked him how he stored them and he said mylar bags with fullbacks on a wire shelving unit, not wood. I told him I keep mine in a cardboard box with regular bags and boards in my closet. He just laughed and said the wood and cardboard off-gas acids that ruin the paper over time. I went home that night and pulled out my keys and scratched the spine on an old Spider-Man #300 by accident. That was my fault but the storage thing got me paranoid. Now I'm looking at BCW bins and those museum-grade mylar bags but they cost like $2 each. Has anyone else switched to fullbacks and plastic bins or is that overkill for modern books?
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taylor1224d ago
Wait, so cardboard boxes actually off-gas acids that mess up your books? I always thought that was just people being extra, but this makes me want to swap my long boxes out now.
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Ngl I used to think the whole mylar/fullback thing was just hype from the YouTube comic guys but reading this changed my mind. Might have to swap my key books over at least.
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harper_foster24d ago
Wait, @taylor12 didn't you say you were thinking about switching too? Feels like we're all in the same boat now. I've been using the regular cardboard boxes for years and never really noticed damage, but after reading that breakdown about lignin and how it basically turns into acid over time it kind of freaked me out. I pulled out an old book from the 90s from my box the other day and the back cover was definitely starting to look kinda yellow and brittle near the edges nothing crazy but enough to make me think maybe all those YouTube guys weren't just being dramatic.
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