Just how "Short Term" are poly bags really?

[Morea]

I started bagging my books in the early 80's. As I am switching over to mylar (last couple of years), I notice that the early poly bags were of much higher quality. They don't crinkle and didn't yellow much - after 30 years! However, I do believe the old bags assisted many of my older book's pages to deteriorate to cream/off-white. The newer plastic bags are very thin and tend to deteriorate much quicker. That would concern me quite a bit pertaining to page quality.

 

One of the nicest OO collections I ever saw, came out of a show box where the books were laid flat and every other issue was turned so that the bind of staples were opposite every other issue. This caused zero spine roll and PQ was awesome.

[Soft-Serve]

I bought the cheap self-adhesive polypropylene bags from Bagsunlimited

 

This was bad on two counts Why self-adhesive? They are both awkward and dangerous - I've never understood these.

 

I've used about 1000 of these so far with great success. I find them very easy to use, and much safer than tape-on-the-flap bags for repeated removing. Since the tape is on the bag (and not the inside of the flap), there is absolutely no risk of damage to the comic inside.

 

I've only had one accident with the self-adhesive bags, and that was because I thoughtlessly laid an open one on a bare comic. I normally wouldn't do that with any bag because of exposed tape.

 

I've seen some older self-adhesive bags with the tape affixed to the flap - now that's a terrible design. Only seconded by those who use box tape to close their bags.