Mylars and backing boards question

[Fauby]

LMAO! Just call me Jethro! I wasn't thinking about thickness. I thought a halfback was literally half of a board.

[shadroch]

I was doing fine for 20+ years, moving from house to apartment to apartment- then I moved into a new house a few months ago. After 3 days of high humidity and effective lack of air conditioning in 90 degree heat, I lost about 10% of my bagged collection to moisture warping from the humidity. I lost 100% of my open bagged and non-bagged collection, by comparison. All of it warped beyond collectibility.

 

Thankfully, everything I had worth 'real' money was in a different room in the house, and was spared, including my entire GA collection.

 

I would really love to see these books to see what three days of high humidity and no ac did to them.

In thirty years I've never heard such a story. These books are in New York?

[dc360]

My thing is with open mylars isn't even the fact that they're open. Not that i like the idea of them being open, as described above, but my problem is they they're too big to fit inside normal comic boxes! The open flaps cause them to be too tall, and if you try to stick a lid on the box, it'll just crumple the top of the open-flapped mylar, leaving plenty of possibility for damage when removing the book from the mylar.

 

Oh yeah, i do Mylite2s with Fullbacks, and i couldn't be happier. I'm thinking about buying some Magazine size archives, so i can stick my REALLY valuable books inside one of those after all that.

[SuperBird]

I was doing fine for 20+ years, moving from house to apartment to apartment- then I moved into a new house a few months ago. After 3 days of high humidity and effective lack of air conditioning in 90 degree heat, I lost about 10% of my bagged collection to moisture warping from the humidity. I lost 100% of my open bagged and non-bagged collection, by comparison. All of it warped beyond collectibility.

 

Thankfully, everything I had worth 'real' money was in a different room in the house, and was spared, including my entire GA collection.

 

I would really love to see these books to see what three days of high humidity and no ac did to them.

In thirty years I've never heard such a story. These books are in New York?

 

Yah, I work on 38th street. I can bring some in if you want to meet up. Or a picture. The heat did very little damage in and of itself AFAIK, as the few Don Rosas I had are still white inside.

[bigfiver69]

Hey guys,

 

I do the mylite, laid onto backing boards, slipped into a 4mil mylar thing. Expensive, yes, but it protects from both heat and humidity (to a large degree), it keeps the books rigid and well-protected in storage, and it looks amazing.

 

There are questions about 'cooking the books' when they are so perfectly encapsulated, ie, off gassing building up in the bag and affecting the book. I have not personally experienced that, and any negatives are, to me, well offset by the other benefits of this message of storage.

 

Works for me.

 

Shep

[SuperBird]

would not the same 'cooking' theory apply even moreso to CGC'd books?

[drbanner]

If the room you store your books in is 95 degrees, your books are going to end up at 95 degrees soon enough. No board or bag can protect your books against heat...

[bigfiver69]

would not the same 'cooking' theory apply even moreso to CGC'd books?

 

Excellent question... comments anyone?

 

For the record, I'm still double-bagging!!!

 

Comics, I mean.

 

 

Shep

[Viscosity-migration]

Well, let me first say my "Collectibles Room" is temperature controlled, and also has all the windows tinted 5% (limo) so the most vital aspect of preservation is taken care of right out of the box. (heat & light)

 

However, I like, and still use the "open end" Mylars, simply because they do allow some air to circulate, and the off-gassing to exit easily. I use BC LifeXtenders as backing boards, and a 4mil Mylar as typical storage. It's a bit pricey (especially Cole's shipping costs, UGG!) but works fabulous.

 

Yes, a typical box top will "crunch" the flaps of the Mylars, but that has never caused me a single problem in 20 years. Patience is the key, regardless of being a Doctor or not

[Fauby]

Well, I've heard pros and cons of the open-ended mylars. I guess letting some of the gasses escape is good....Talking about gas building up just gives me mental pictures of exploding comic books!

[WOXL]

I'm a little confused about the differences between half-backs and full-backs as well. I know some regular polly boards are sprayed with a coating on only one side of the board, hence leaving me to assume that this is a half back (half of the sides are coated) whereas coating/finishing on both sides would be a full-back.

 

Is my assessment full-on, or way-off?

 

Thanks in advance for this confusion clarification!

-Bob

[DKB]

Half backs are half the thickness of full backs. No other difference than I know of.

[Jeffreykli]

I'm a little confused about the differences between half-backs and full-backs as well. I know some regular polly boards are sprayed with a coating on only one side of the board, hence leaving me to assume that this is a half back (half of the sides are coated) whereas coating/finishing on both sides would be a full-back.

 

Is my assessment full-on, or way-off?

 

Thanks in advance for this confusion clarification!

-Bob

 

The coating has nothing to do with halfbacks or fullbacks. Both halfbacks and fullbacks are much better than regular backing boards because they have a buffer which maintains the Ph level.

 

Halfbacks:

24-mil, acid-free, 3% buffered backing board.

Genuine acid-free, virgin wood, cellular fiber.

Meets strict U.S. Government standards for archival storage.

3% calcium carbonate buffer throughout, maintains ph of 8.0+.

White on both sides.

 

Fullbacks:

42 mil, acid-free, 3% buffered backing board.

Genuine acid-free, virgin wood, cellular fiber.

Meets strict U.S. Government standards for archival storage.

3% calcium carbonate buffer throughout, maintains ph of 8.0+.

White on both sides.

The highest quality backing board available anywhere.

 

For more information, you can check out egerber.com: Linky-Dink

 

Personally, I go with mylite2s with fullbacks for anything decent, and open 4 mil mylars with a fullback for my good stuff or GA.

[DKB]

And you can always toss some archival paper in the mix if you feel the twinge to do so.

[WOXL]

Thanks for the help. So the packs of 100x Ultra Pro boards you typically find in comic shops would just be regular backing boards? It appears that LCS regular board prices are equal to mail order half back prices (roughly $7-$8/100) and mailorder mylites are just a little more than LCS pollies. Looks like my comics are about to see an upgrade in their living quarters very soon

 

-Bob

[Jeffreykli]

Thanks for the help. So the packs of 100x Ultra Pro boards you typically find in comic shops would just be regular backing boards? It appears that LCS regular board prices are equal to mail order half back prices (roughly $7-$8/100) and mailorder mylites are just a little more than LCS pollies. Looks like my comics are about to see an upgrade in their living quarters very soon

 

-Bob

 

Yes, the Ultra Pros are regular backing boards. I had a pack of 100 halfbacks, but really didn't like them that much...they're pretty much equal to the regular backing boards, and don't offer that much protection. It's probably because I've been using fullbacks, but they are so much better it's not even close. Fullbacks are even stiffer than two regular backing boards.

[Viscosity-migration]

and allow me to add...the Bill Cole Boards, are BY FAR, the best boards you can buy imo, and you'll pay for em' as well!

 

Don't misunderstand, the Gerber Full-Backs are very solid boards, but they're not made of the superior card stock paper that the "Cole" boards are.

 

I order 90% of the time from BCMylar , but their shipping costs REEK of arrogance, and it bothers me to no end. So when factoring in $$$ spent to relevant quality of product, the Gerber stuff is most likely the better deal. I just really love those BC backing boards

[PovertyRow]

Don't misunderstand, the Gerber Full-Backs are very solid boards, but they're not made of the superior card stock paper that the "Cole" boards are.

 

Do you have any specs on the Cole vs Gerber board stock composition? What makes Cole better than Gerber?

[Viscosity-migration]

POV...

 

I don't know off the top of my head, but the Gerber boards are made of 42 mil "cardboard" while the Cole boards are a "paper stock" (they look & feel completely different than the Gerber stuff, kind of silk like)

 

The Cole boards I know have an activated charcoal lamination between the two boards, and are a bit more rigid than the Gerber boards.

 

The big problem is $$

 

For 200 42 mil full backs from Gerber to my home on Long Island, $49.00 great deal.

 

For the same quantity of the 42 mil/200 Life-Xtender boards from Cole $ 250.00 (no, that's not a joke)

 

So, it's a problem, but the Cole boards are without a doubt, the best quality. It's simply the $$$ that has to be factored in. Sorry if this wasn't a help///

[FFB]

and allow me to add...the Bill Cole Boards, are BY FAR, the best boards you can buy imo, and you'll pay for em' as well!

 

Don't misunderstand, the Gerber Full-Backs are very solid boards, but they're not made of the superior card stock paper that the "Cole" boards are.

 

I order 90% of the time from BCMylar , but their shipping costs REEK of arrogance, and it bothers me to no end. So when factoring in $$$ spent to relevant quality of product, the Gerber stuff is most likely the better deal. I just really love those BC backing boards

 

It's not the quality of the paper stock that makes the Cole boards better from an archival standpoint; if anything, it's the activated charcoal layer that makes them better. E. Gerber's boards are made of 100% virgin wood cellular fiber (not "cardboard" in the corrugated sense that most people think of it) buffered to a pH of 8.0 or greater using calcium carbonate. There is no higher quality "card stock" back board available on the market than that from a preservation standpoint. Gerber's boards have no activated charcoal layer. That's where the added cost comes from in the BCE boards.

 

Personally, I'm not sure that the difference in quality is worth the extreme difference in cost. I haven't seen any testing done on the two sets of boards to see if one absorbs acid less well or becomes acidic more quickly. It would be interesting to hear what someone like Tracey Heft thinks about the activated charcoal layer and whether it is really needed if the board is already buffered with calcium carbonate.