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Storing a CGC Comic Book In A Vacuum Sealed Bag?

Started by bushwickprojects,

70 posts in this topic

fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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I don't really know, I've just heard about the storage conditions for the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and humidity control is a part of it. I would imagine that water can pass through some materials, but which ones...I can't say.

 

Whenever I read storage recommendations on the Library of Congress web site, I never see vacuum-sealing as anything they recommend nor anything they claim to do to their own items. Does anyone have any references to info about the benefits of vacuum-sealing?

 

How were you going to do the sealing, and with what material?

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Arty

Arty

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I have thought this a bit but I don't have definitive answers.

 

Lets think about simpler situation first, sealing without vacuum: if you seal your comics in inert material like mylar no humidity or gasses can pass it. So outside humidily is irrelevant. Basically you should be able to store your comics underwater without harm (try it with your own risk though smile.gif).

 

BUT humidity inside sealed bag does still matter:

At the time of encapsulation, relative humidity inside sealed bag is naturally same as outside so sealing should be done in ideal conditions.

However relative humidity changes in relation to temperature so this means that humidity can change even in sealed environment Link

In extreme cases, like taking your sealed book out at winter condensation can occur, leading to water damage.

 

This also means that if you keep your sealed books in even temperature relative humidity doesn't change at all.

 

I'd really like to know more about vacuum storage myself:

 

For example is it possible that humidity gets too low inside vacuum (doesn't nearly total absence of air mean also very low humidity?)

This might lead into problems since too low humidity causes brittleness in paper.

 

 

 

 

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clobberintime

clobberintime

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Sounds like you saw the same infomercial I did! I was flipping channels and came across a guy sealing what looked like a nm Spidey 3 in a vacuum bag! I watched for a few minutes. The ad was for a device to store food long term so it won't detoriate in the freezer - it wraps things in plastic and sucks all the air out. But someone thought it would be a good idea to preserve paper collectibles too. The ad is on all the time and I think they do the comics towards the end. They sure picked a heck of a book to demonstrate on tv though - I would bet that Spidey 3 they had was at least a $5000 copy.

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bushwickprojects

bushwickprojects

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I don't really know, I've just heard about the storage conditions for the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and humidity control is a part of it. I would imagine that water can pass through some materials, but which ones...I can't say.

 

Whenever I read storage recommendations on the Library of Congress web site, I never see vacuum-sealing as anything they recommend nor anything they claim to do to their own items. Does anyone have any references to info about the benefits of vacuum-sealing?

 

How were you going to do the sealing, and with what material?

 

I was gonna use the a CGC bag along with that As Seen On T.V. vacuum sealer but from what I am reading here I dont think it would be a good idea...

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Lets think about simpler situation first, sealing without vacuum: if you seal your comics in inert material like mylar no humidity or gasses can pass it.

 

Are you sure that's true, that gaseous water (humidity) can't pass through Melinex? The "inert" adjective I've heard applied to Melinex refers to how the plastic itself doesn't release harmful gases unlike polyethylene/polypropylene, both of which break down and release acid after 3-10 years.

 

I really don't know myself, but since I have yet to hear a conservation expert recommend sealing yet they ALL recommend and practice humidity control, I was assuming you couldn't keep humidity out. You'd think that sealing would be the prevalent practice in museums and libraries instead of using dehumidifiers if sealing kept humidity out.

 

The last I heard, the Constitution was sealed, but that might be to keep the nitrogen in more than to keep the humidity out (it's resting in a nitrogen-filled Mylar container last I heard).

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Tracey Heft, a professional conservationist and restorer ( http://www.eclipsepaper.com ), posted on this topic a few months ago in the "grading and restoration" forum. I never could pin him down on whether sealed environments were better than unsealed ones...he just kept saying it didn't matter as much as long as the temperature and humidity of the "microenvironment" was stable.

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lighthouse

lighthouse

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Sealing paper collectibles in a vacuum bag is a terrible choice...

 

Vacuum-sealing is used extensively by some goverment agencies as a means of document storage. A quick google search will show the recommendations of the Australian government on the subject, where vacuum-sealing is an answer to problems with rodents, mold, and a lack of storage space. But they aren't exactly concerned with whether their paper will still have that Mile High smell...

 

What appears to be a two-dimensional page of comic book paper is actually a very thin three-dimensional cellulose sponge. Each page retains a certain amount of moisture, as well as concentrations of several different gasses. You've seen the part of the ad where they pump the air out of a jar of marshmallows, and the marshmallows expand to several times their normal size. That's because there are gasses trapped within the marshmallows which try to force their way out when the outside air pressure is reduced. When they break the vacuum seal, the marshmallows violently contract back to their normal shape as the gas pressure inside and outside the marshmallow stabilize.

 

Putting paper collectibles in a vacuum sealed environment would accelerate the decay of the paper as the minute quantities of moisture and other gasses are pulled through the membranes of the fibers. And the stress of that process would damage the very collectibles you are trying to preserve. It's a less dramatic version of the damage you see if something is repeatedly frozen and thawed, but no less dangerous to the integrity of the item.

 

You do want to minimize the amount of oxygen surrounding your collectibles, but depressurizing them isn't the answer. Storing them in a Nitrogen-filled environment is. It works for the Library of Congress, and every bag of Doritos you open is a demonstration of how well a Nitrogen-rich environment can preserve items that decay with exposure to oxygen...

 

For those with some time on their hands, here is a brochure from the Library of Congress which details the fact that the most harmful elements to paper are already inside the paper when it is made. After we have protected from catastrophic damage (be it rodent, flood, smoke or sunlight), all we can do as preservationists is to limit the interaction between those harmful elements and the catalysts in the outside environment.

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lighthouse

lighthouse

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The last I heard, the Constitution was sealed, but that might be to keep the nitrogen in more than to keep the humidity out (it's resting in a nitrogen-filled Mylar container last I heard).

 

Very true... The Nitrogen environment used to protect documents like these is both sealed and recirculated. The Nitrogen is cycled every so often through a filtration system to minimize the trace buildups of gasses given off by the documents themselves. It's also the easiest way for them to maintain the exact temperature, by pumping Nitrogen gas back in at the temperature desired...

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garthgantu

garthgantu

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Fascinating stuff...

 

So, Lighthouse (or anyone else) - do you have an opinion on sealing polybags and mylars, vs. leaving them unsealed? I've heard arguments for and against sealing bags/mylars...

 

For: sealing will keep the majority of air and moisture out, thus preserving the comic book more effectively.

 

Against: sealing will trap a certain amount of moisture, which won't be able to escape as it normally would, and this will ultimately damage the comic; allowing a normal flow of air and (minute) moisture in and out of a bag/mylar is 'healthier' for the comic book.

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Anyone know what the proper hunidity is to store comics?

 

Library of Congress says 35%. Elsewhere on their site, they say 45% to 55% is more realistic and not a bad goal. More important than the level you keep it down to is that you keep it at a consistent level. Frequent changes in temperature and humidity are worse than keeping it low sometimes and letting it go back up at others.

 

In my experience in living on the East Coast, I can't realistically keep humidity below 45% with any consistency unless I run my dehumidifier on high and I also have a wall air conditioning unit cranked way up. I've found you can't rely on central air to cool a room with a dehumidifier for a simple reason--the dehumidifier gets so hot when you run it too much that it raises the temperature to 80 degrees or more! You've got to keep the room with the dehumidifier closed off from the rest of the house, which traps in the heat from it, and keeps the cool air from the rest of the house from getting in. If I run my dehumidifier at a level to sustain the room at 35% humidity in the summer, it's 80 degrees in the comic room and 71 everywhere else.

 

During the late fall, winter, and early spring, it's a delight, because humidity falls naturally to 30% to 40% with no dehumidifying necessary. The biggest pain in the rear is mid-fall and mid-spring. That's when the temp is in the high 60s/low 70s...that's great temperature to go outside in, but at that level, the humidity can still be high yet dehumidifiers barely pull water! They don't work worth a hoot under 70 degrees. I thought mine was broken the first year I used it, but I realized the next year that it just doesn't pull water under 70.

 

Libraries and museums keep "cold rooms" where the temp is around 50 degrees...and that low temp sucks the water out, making artificial dehumidification unnecessary. However, maintaining that temperature is too expensive...especially since most of us keep the books which warrant that expense in the bank anyway!

 

The ideal situation is to live in an area with naturally low humidity. All the Canucks on the board can probably ignore everything I've said about dehumidification...it tends to be low temp and low humidity up there year-round.

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PovertyRow

PovertyRow

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More important than the level you keep it down to is that you keep it at a consistent level. Frequent changes in temperature and humidity are worse than keeping it low sometimes and letting it go back up at others.

 

To quote Renfield in the 1931 Universal film DRACULA: "Be guided by what he says!"

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