Did Comic Care change the size of their polyethylene SA sleeves? 1 1

[Roo_Phillip]

I just got a new pack of Comic Care polyethylene SA sleeves. I've used these for years and really like them. The package says the sleeves measure 7 1/8" x 10 1/2". I tried bagging and boarding a pile of BA and SA books and they're way too tight. WTH? So I pulled out a sleeve from last year's package and found the new SA sleeves are 1/8" narrower. The size of the boards has not changed from the last package I bought, only the sleeves.  First pic shows a narrow new sleeve over the old one, second pic shows the older style sleeve is clearly  7 1/4", not 7 1/8" wide.

Does anyone have an older pack of comic Care SA polyethylene sleeves? If so, can you check the measurements stated on the package? Is the width 7 1/8" or 7 1/4"? There's no way these are supposed to fit. It's difficult to slide the board into the empty sleeve, let alone a comic and a board both. And a thicker book would be out of the question. What gives?  

I've tried to find a website for Comic Care to inquire further but no luck. Does anyone know if they have one? Thanks for any insights on this.  

 

Edited January 3 by Roo_Phillip

[Turnando]

I am having the same problem ComicCare current size ComicCovers.

I have some backing boards that were working fine in my old UltraPro current size bags until I ran out and started trying to use these ComicCare bags. They are a tiny bit narrower than my old bags.

The ComicCare bags are too snug. I have to trim off a millimeter of the width of a board to get the board into the bag. The bags and boards have an actual width of 7".  I can jam a board in there untrimmed but it is so tight that it warps a bit and stretches the bag and it is too tight to jam a book in there with the board.

I don't know what brand my boards are.  Maybe I should not have expected any "current size" bag to fit any "current size" board. 

[Kramerica]

Yeah, I found this out about a year ago but it was through BCW. The SA bags are 7" 1/8 and do not work at all with their 7" SA Boards. You literally have to damage your book getting it in it is so tight. I don't know what happened. I had to start ordering the "Regular/Silver" BCW bags which are 7" 1/4 to make things work. I found 4 bags of 100 on Amazon that came out to about 7.50 per hundred but it was an ordeal as we had ordered 2000 Bags and Boards which didn't fit. Anyway, here is the combo you need:

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-RESEALABLE-Silver-Backer-Boards/dp/B07GVZH46B/ref=sr_1_8?crid=2TKHO3CWSP1R&keywords=silver+age+comic+book+bags+and+boards&qid=1704298861&sprefix=silver+age+%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-8

[Kramerica]

A colleague suggested that a massive, massive order might have been placed in China or elsewhere abroad and specs got mixed up during the pandemic.

I don't know how much of that I believe but SOMETHING went wrong somewhere and someone has to be held accountable. Like, dragged out into the village square and pummeled with rocks and tomatoes.

[Roo_Phillip]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:23 AM, Kramerica said:

Yeah, I found this out about a year ago but it was through BCW. The SA bags are 7" 1/8 and do not work at all with their 7" SA Boards. You literally have to damage your book getting it in it is so tight. I don't know what happened. I had to start ordering the "Regular/Silver" BCW bags which are 7" 1/4 to make things work. I found 4 bags of 100 on Amazon that came out to about 7.50 per hundred but it was an ordeal as we had ordered 2000 Bags and Boards which didn't fit. Anyway, here is the combo you need:

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-RESEALABLE-Silver-Backer-Boards/dp/B07GVZH46B/ref=sr_1_8?crid=2TKHO3CWSP1R&keywords=silver+age+comic+book+bags+and+boards&qid=1704298861&sprefix=silver+age+%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-8

Thanks for that. 

I edited the title of the post, I meant POLYETHYLENE, not polypropylene.   

I prefer the ethylene for my PC.  And those self-sealing bags are the devil to me--I'm a klutz and have accidently snagged too many comics with them!  Any idea of a polyethylene equivalent?

[Roo_Phillip]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:23 AM, Turnando said:

I am having the same problem ComicCare current size ComicCovers.

I have some backing boards that were working fine in my old UltraPro current size bags until I ran out and started trying to use these ComicCare bags. They are a tiny bit narrower than my old bags.

The ComicCare bags are too snug. I have to trim off a millimeter of the width of a board to get the board into the bag. The bags and boards have an actual width of 7".  I can jam a board in there untrimmed but it is so tight that it warps a bit and stretches the bag and it is too tight to jam a book in there with the board.

I don't know what brand my boards are.  Maybe I should not have expected any "current size" bag to fit any "current size" board. 

I'll have to do that to make these work, but that leaves an uncomfortable lack of board overlap.  

[Kramerica]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:39 AM, Roo_Phillip said:

I'll have to do that to make these work, but that leaves an uncomfortable lack of board overlap.  

Just remember: It's not your fault. It may irritate you because you have OCD just like me but you did nothing wrong. You have no control over this. The bad people did it.

[PopKulture]

BCW did that with their golden age bags. The new bags are 7 and 5/8 inches instead of 7 and 3/4 inches and will not accommodate a simple 1950s Dell comic with the combo (7 and 1/2 inch backing boards). This is just further confirmation that these companies don’t have collectors making these decisions. 

[Kramerica]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:56 AM, PopKulture said:

This is just further confirmation that these companies don’t have collectors making these decisions. 

We should seek out Vandelay Industries and contract them to produce proper bags and boards. They made the oil tanker bladder system to prevent oil tanker spills. They created The Human Fund. They even have an architect that created the Guggenheim. Surely they can create diametrically correct bags and boards for the CGC Chat Boards right?

[PopKulture]

On 1/3/2024 at 11:10 AM, Kramerica said:

We should seek out Vandelay Industries and contract them to produce proper bags and boards. They made the oil tanker bladder system to prevent oil tanker spills. They created The Human Fund. They even have an architect that created the Guggenheim. Surely they can create diametrically correct bags and boards for the CGC Chat Boards right?

One would hope! 

[lizards2]

These were bought several years ago. Says 7 1/8" on the outer bag, but the actual measurements are 7 1/4"

[Roo_Phillip]

On 1/3/2024 at 9:59 AM, lizards2 said:

These were bought several years ago. Says 7 1/8" on the outer bag, but the actual measurements are 7 1/4"

Thanks Liz, that's exactly the confirmation I was looking for 

[lizards2]

On 1/3/2024 at 10:16 AM, Roo_Phillip said:

Thanks Liz, that's exactly the confirmation I was looking for 

Interesting the wording "Protects all comics up to 7 1/8" - if that was the case, they would need to be larger than 7 1/8"...., 

[ttfitz]

On 1/3/2024 at 12:10 PM, Kramerica said:

We should seek out Vandelay Industries and contract them to produce proper bags and boards. They made the oil tanker bladder system to prevent oil tanker spills. They created The Human Fund. They even have an architect that created the Guggenheim. Surely they can create diametrically correct bags and boards for the CGC Chat Boards right?

They have a LinkedIn account and everything, so they must be legit!

[Roo_Phillip]

Who the blank is this Comic Care Collecting Supplies company?  Their products are for sale everywhere, but I can't find anything about a company website.  How do you contact them?

Hey Hotflips, I think I've bought these from you in the past.  Can you shed any light on this?  

Edited January 3 by Roo_Phillip
Removed tag, never mind

[Dick Pontoon]

Pretty sure HotFlips supplies are manufactured for HotFlips, excepting the Gerber supplies they carry.

I was always under the impression that ComiCare was part of Diamond's comic supply arm.

https://www.diamondcomics.com/Article/32601-ComiCare-Comics-Manga-Boxes-Still-Available

 

Edited January 3 by Dick Pontoon

[aardvark88]

Younger generation of collectors like the Standard width of polyethyline bag at 7 1/8", as it is tighter. Have seen another size marketed as Silver Age width at the wider 7 1/4" which is what I use.

[Roo_Phillip]

On 1/3/2024 at 12:07 PM, Pontoon said:

Pretty sure HotFlips supplies are manufactured for HotFlips, excepting the Gerber supplies they carry.

I was always under the impression that ComiCare was part of Diamond's comic supply arm.

https://www.diamondcomics.com/Article/32601-ComiCare-Comics-Manga-Boxes-Still-Available

 

Thanks, I just checked his site and didn't see that brand.  It was a while ago.  Sorry about the false tag Hotflips 

Thanks for the other info too 

 

[HOTFLIPS]

On 1/3/2024 at 2:55 PM, Roo_Phillip said:

Who the blank is this Comic Care Collecting Supplies company?  Their products are for sale everywhere, but I can't find anything about a company website.  How do you contact them?

Hey Hotflips, I think I've bought these from you in the past.  Can you shed any light on this?  

We carry our own supplies

www.hotflips.com

[Moondog]

I didn't invent the comic bag, but back in 1981 I standardized the sizes for the 4 most popular poly bags that collectors and dealers used.  I was fed up with boards being too narrow or too wide.  Bags too narrow or too wide. And spotty availability. So I created the ComiCare line of supplies.  ComiCovers, ComiCards, and ComiCartons all under the ComiCare umbrella.  From 1981 to 1995 I sold over 800 million ComiCovers brand sleeves.  In 1995 I sold all the trademarks to Diamond.  I ran a full-page ad on page 5 of the Comics Buyer's Guide every week for 14 straight years.

The sizes I chose: Modern era 6 7/8" wide, Silver Age 7 1/8"  Golden Age 7 3/4" and Magazine 8 3/4" were based on my experience as a retailer - what made the comics look best when bagged and boarded.  I also color coded the packages to make then easy to spot: Modern - blue, SA - black, GA - green, Magazine - red.

ComiCovers was also the first bag to be available in polyethylene or polypropylene.  All were made right here in the USA as opposed to my competitors who imported them from China and Brazil.

ComiCovers was the first brand name ever used in the hobby.  Prior to ComiCovers they were just referred to as "comic bags". 

It's not difficult to control the widths of poly bags during manufacture, but if a mistake is made hundreds of thousands of bags can get by before the error is found.  To protect against that, my tolerances for a SA bag were 7 1/8" minus 0, plus 1/8".  It was always better to be a little too wide rather than too narrow.

Here's a photo of Vince Smith and me at at an industry trade show in the mid-80s.  The button was very popular back in the day.    A couple of employees at the Moondog booth at a mid-80s Chicago Comicon.  A 1988 package of Modern polyethylene.

I'm pleased to see they're still available from Diamond.