Verdict on Storing Comics Horizontally (Staples/Spine Down or Staples/Spine Up)? 1 1

[TheHulkCollector]

Quote

True, true...i use file cabinets though.

Can you take a picture of the comics inside your cabinets just so I can look at it and possibly consider have the comics laying flat instead of horizontally or upright?

[TheHulkCollector]

I just ask because I've seen that a problem similar to mine with filing cabinets is that with many the drawers are just a bit shorter than the bigger comics bags (silver and gold) so people place them at a slight angle to be able to close and open the drawer.

[lostboys]

On 6/23/2022 at 4:35 PM, TheHulkCollector said:

I just ask because I've seen that a problem similar to mine with filing cabinets is that with many the drawers are just a bit shorter than the bigger comics bags (silver and gold) so people place them at a slight angle to be able to close and open the drawer.

These cabinets are perfect for comics...plenty of room inside.

I do 3 rows of 100 books. 

I could actually fit 4 rows in these drawers though.

I place stiff boards every 30 or so books to try and keep em up straight.

I could use bookends but they get in the way when I wanna flip through.

 

 

[lostboys]

I lay slabs flat

 

[Qalyar]

For slabs:

• Storing them spine-down (that is, with the reading edge up) places the least stress on the paper at the staples, from a physics standpoint. Arguably, that makes this the preferred orientation for long-term storage.
• Laying them flat on their back is likely to be fine as long as you do not do really stupid stacking things.
• Storing them vertically (that is the bottom of the book down, and the top of the book up, like in a newsstand) does place uneven stress on the stapled paper. But tightly slabbed books that have good paper (but in terms of non-brittle page quality and actually having decent paper to start with -- unlike, say, some recent Marvels!) are very unlikely to see actual damage develop this way in a reasonable time frame.
• Storing them spine-up, with the reading edge down, is an actively bad idea, because this basically causes the weight of the pages to hang from the staples and can lead to damage or even outright separation given enough time (especially if there's movement/vibration at times). Do not store books -- comics or otherwise -- this way. It is bad for them.

For bagged and boarded books, the calculus is a little more complicated because the bagged book is thicker on the staple side than on the reading edge. Even with the board, this can create bends given time, which is why many people recommend front-to-back alternation or similar solutions. And of course, poorly stored books can develop bends in other directions despite the stiffness of boards -- I've seen boarded books with a curl at the bottom because they were permitted to slump in their box. The most important things for storing boarded books are to ensure that the books don't experience uneven pressure and that they aren't able to shift around.

[Axe Elf]

On 6/27/2022 at 1:45 PM, Qalyar said:

Storing them spine-up, with the reading edge down, is an actively bad idea, because this basically causes the weight of the pages to hang from the staples and can lead to damage or even outright separation given enough time

Why are the staples fixed in space such that the pages would pull away from them?  Aren't the staples affected by gravity too?  I also have a hard time believing that a centerfold in a closed book could overcome the friction of the pages next to it through the mere force of gravity to pull away from a staple, even if the staple WERE fixed in space--especially since the other pages are also subject to the same gravity!

This just seems like a highly unlikely outcome.  I'd be interested to see if anyone has any concrete examples of such damage, and documentation that the damage definitely occurred through the uneven application of gravity across the book, its pages, and its staples.

More likely it's the comic collecting version of an urban legend.

[rexinnih]

I read the pros, I read the cons but still not convinced there's a consensus on this. I have my slabbed books on a shelf with the staples up as I see this as being the easiest way to read the information (Book name, number, etc.) as CGC has it printed so I can view them. 

[Qalyar]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:38 PM, Axe Elf said:

Why are the staples fixed in space such that the pages would pull away from them?  Aren't the staples affected by gravity too?  I also have a hard time believing that a centerfold in a closed book could overcome the friction of the pages next to it through the mere force of gravity to pull away from a staple, even if the staple WERE fixed in space--especially since the other pages are also subject to the same gravity!

This just seems like a highly unlikely outcome.  I'd be interested to see if anyone has any concrete examples of such damage, and documentation that the damage definitely occurred through the uneven application of gravity across the book, its pages, and its staples.

More likely it's the comic collecting version of an urban legend.

So, with non-comic books, this is very much a real problem. Books stored spine-up place extra stress on adhesive that binds pages to the spine and over time can cause them to separate, sometimes resulting in additional damage due to the resulting stress to the rest of the binding. There's not really any debate about this; hardcovers have unquestionably had damage done to them this way. Do not store hardcover books spine-up.

So the question is... could comics be damage the same way? For squarebound books, the book is assembled in a very similar manner to a normal book; the interior pages (which, here, are stapled) are glued into the cover. Although the weight of the interior pages of an 80-page giant is less than the weight of the interior pages of, say, a 500-page hardcover, physics says the difference is in the magnitude of the forces, not their presence or absence. So the damage may not happen as quickly, but there's still no reason to do that. Besides, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the adhesives used to bind squarebound comics are less robust than their bookbinding cousins. The comic's page weight may be lighter, but the force keeping things together is weaker. Why make life harder on your books?

The open question, then, is whether this represents a danger to a saddle-stitched (that is, stapled together normally) comic. Physics says that the forces pulling down on those interior pages are still present if a book is stored spine-up. Reality says that staples are a lot more secure fastener than aging binding adhesive, so the potential point of failure is the paper at the binding points. Do I really think that the weight of a comic's interior pages is sufficient to widen the staple holes over time or to risk detachment of leaves? Over human-reasonable timeframes and for most books, honestly, no. It probably doesn't matter. But in books already prone to these problems, where the cover or centerfold is on its way to being detached already? I certainly would not put them in a position where physics says the forces are being borne by the weakest point. Same goes for books that are prone to inherent paper quality problems -- stuff like Negro Romance or the Canadian Whites, where many of the known copies have slightly brittle or brittle pages; a conservation ethos demands that we store those books in the way that's most likely to encourage their continued preservation regardless of the odds involved.

There is a secondary reason not to store slabs spine-up. Many books have a small amount of cover overhang. Not all comics are slabbed extremely tightly against the wells (the alternative can cause the covers to bind against the well while the pages shift, resulting in more severe damage, which we have seen -- it's the cause of the worst examples of SCS). Especially for those books with a lot of play in their position and a bit of overhang at the reading edge, it's a bad idea to store them spine-up because that places the weight of the comic book against the edges of the cover. Again, is this likely to cause damage in and of itself in the short- to medium-term? Probably not, but why store valuable collectibles in an orientation with the potential for long-term stress when it's fairly trivial to turn them a different way?

[Axe Elf]

On 6/28/2022 at 7:59 AM, Qalyar said:

So, with non-comic books, this is very much a real problem. Books stored spine-up place extra stress on adhesive that binds pages to the spine and over time can cause them to separate, sometimes resulting in additional damage due to the resulting stress to the rest of the binding. There's not really any debate about this; hardcovers have unquestionably had damage done to them this way. Do not store hardcover books spine-up.

So the question is... could comics be damage the same way? For squarebound books, the book is assembled in a very similar manner to a normal book; the interior pages (which, here, are stapled) are glued into the cover. Although the weight of the interior pages of an 80-page giant is less than the weight of the interior pages of, say, a 500-page hardcover, physics says the difference is in the magnitude of the forces, not their presence or absence. So the damage may not happen as quickly, but there's still no reason to do that. Besides, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the adhesives used to bind squarebound comics are less robust than their bookbinding cousins. The comic's page weight may be lighter, but the force keeping things together is weaker. Why make life harder on your books?

The open question, then, is whether this represents a danger to a saddle-stitched (that is, stapled together normally) comic. Physics says that the forces pulling down on those interior pages are still present if a book is stored spine-up. Reality says that staples are a lot more secure fastener than aging binding adhesive, so the potential point of failure is the paper at the binding points. Do I really think that the weight of a comic's interior pages is sufficient to widen the staple holes over time or to risk detachment of leaves? Over human-reasonable timeframes and for most books, honestly, no. It probably doesn't matter. But in books already prone to these problems, where the cover or centerfold is on its way to being detached already? I certainly would not put them in a position where physics says the forces are being borne by the weakest point. Same goes for books that are prone to inherent paper quality problems -- stuff like Negro Romance or the Canadian Whites, where many of the known copies have slightly brittle or brittle pages; a conservation ethos demands that we store those books in the way that's most likely to encourage their continued preservation regardless of the odds involved.

There is a secondary reason not to store slabs spine-up. Many books have a small amount of cover overhang. Not all comics are slabbed extremely tightly against the wells (the alternative can cause the covers to bind against the well while the pages shift, resulting in more severe damage, which we have seen -- it's the cause of the worst examples of SCS). Especially for those books with a lot of play in their position and a bit of overhang at the reading edge, it's a bad idea to store them spine-up because that places the weight of the comic book against the edges of the cover. Again, is this likely to cause damage in and of itself in the short- to medium-term? Probably not, but why store valuable collectibles in an orientation with the potential for long-term stress when it's fairly trivial to turn them a different way?

More to my point, hardcover books would be in danger because the rigid support DOES form a stable fixed point for the binding, and the pages are generally trimmed smaller than the rigid covers, and thus there would be room and resistance for gravity to pull the pages away from the binding.

With a comic book, there's nothing holding the staples/binding in place for gravity to pull AGAINST--the force of gravity acts equally on the whole book--and most often, the cover is cut to the same size as the pages, so there's no room for the pages to pull away from the staples even if the staples WERE a fixed anchor.

But as you said, if there is a significant overhang from the cover to the pages, that would not only provide room for pages to detach, but would more likely over time bend/stress the edges of the cover that overhung the pages.  Square bound comics (without an overhang) should be relatively safe though, as again there would be nothing holding the binding in place for gravity to pull against.

For most normal, stapled comics, I can't imagine this would ever be a concern.

[comicginger1789]

You guys mean you don’t munch a submarine sandwich while reading your comics and then chuck em in a box when you are done? 
 

And before you dis my lack of organization…I can tell which books are where by the mustard stains, thank you very much

Ive stored these books like this for decades and they look the same to me

 

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by comicginger1789

[topcat54]

On 6/28/2022 at 1:30 PM, comicginger1789 said:

You guys mean you don’t munch a submarine sandwich while reading your comics and then chuck em in a box when you are done? 
 

And before you dis my lack of organization…I can tell which books are where by the mustard stains, thank you very much

Ive stored these books like this for decades and they look the same to me

 

 

How do you get them so organized?

Mine is like.

[TheHulkCollector]

So, quick update, and apologies in advance because all of this may sound very, very weird:

When I started this topic I actually didn't have the cabinet in my possession physically since it still needed to be transported to my house. I mostly based the Letter-Size from estimates and I apologize for having mislead you in that regard. Once I got the filing cabinet, I realized that, in terms of drawer height, it couldn't fit the comics in bags and boards but only by a millimeter, and in terms of drawer length, can fit two rows of regular poly bags or one row of poly bags and one row of Silver/Gold Mylites. My current setup has the comics like this, and I was wondering what would be your thoughts on the matter (yes I have the polys alternating between front and back cover to alleviate the weight and I have my Silver/Gold Mylites with BAs with comics on both sides of the bags). I took into account what lostboys said and set up the comics so that the more tilted the comics are, the less pressure they have on them, so none of them bend.

(Also, quick sidenote, these Mylites are Mylites 4 and I noticed many of them have small chips breaking on the edge of the flap bend, should I worry?)

Edited July 8, 2022 by TheHulkCollector