Conservation/ well keeping comics advices...

[Kermit]

To everyone

 

Our passion and love for comics, storys, artists, etc...are bulid-up and maintained on one of the most less durable supports: "comics paper".

 

Fulled of chemicals, inks and destructive inner products, comics paper wasn't made to be a durable one, so any serious collector or comics lover, might start battling with the aging process. It can't be avoid, but it can be seriouslly delaied, prolonging the life of the comic.

 

I tought that all of you, rookies and pros alike, with your experience on comic book collecting and caring () could present here your advices on how to keep safe and preserve your comics coll., so it can endure a few more decades on the hands of your gand-childrens (or younger buyers,).

 

Here are some advices that i came up with:

 

- Bag all your comics. Try to find the best bags and non-acid boards. I advice you to board the ones you cherish the most, if you don't want to board them all. Nowadays you can find very good quality at an affordable price.

 

- Keep them vertically and in boxes (there are boxes on the comicstores made just for your colls.).

 

- Don't pile them up, they'll get serious deformations and have the risk of falling from the table and getting under the foot of one of your parents, or worse, on the mouth on your pet.

 

- Put your coll. on a space of your house where you can control the direct light, temperature variations and avoiding the entry of excessive dust and others less positive environmental compounds,.

 

- Avoid eating/cooking/having food near your coll. (hygienic and preservation measures).

 

- If you're into "deep" preservation, buy equipment to control the humidity on the room where you have the coll.

One important aspect in this subject, don't push the equipment to his maximum speed, to take out all the humidity, because it can induce to an negative impact on the paper (when passing from one roon to another, putting off the equipment, etc...). Sometimes is the humidity drastic variations that accelerates the aging process, rather than the normal/constant humidity from the environment.

And paper also needs a certain degree of humidity (around 40% isn't a bad level).

 

- While letting your comics around the place, avoid letting them under direct sunlight too many days, you'll end up with a faded/discoulored cover/pages.

 

- If possible change your bags from time to time and try to pick up the boxes one time per year, to allow the comics to "move inside the bag" and avoid getting "glued" to it due to the phenomen of condensetion.

 

Well, these are some toughts that i think being interesting, i hope this might be useful and please drop by and ad your sayings,

 

regards, Pedro.

 

ps- i tried my best to express clearly on my painful english,. I hope you get my ideas.

[Kermit]

I don't know if this was the best forum for this topic...

[Aces]

Isn't this the poll forum?

 

My best advice is never buy water damaged comics...

Those rusty staples will eat through the paper in a few years and you'll have a Poor/Fair detached cover book on your hands that you bought as a VG.