Removing humidity damage, naturally.

[ninanina]

I can't be the only person experiencing this can I?

 

Like something out of the Twilight Zone (related thread elsewhere, apologies to Proverbs22_22), I have put Silver Age comics in a bag that had minor humidity damage or just general wear. Somehow they've improved in condition slowly over the space of a few years. The waves are not as pronounced. The two examples I have are a Journey Into Mystery 84 I bought on e-bay and a Captain America 100 that I know up until that point was never bagged and stored in a high humidity environment. The JIM used to have a pretty serious humidity wave smack dab in the middle of the cover. There still is some damage there but it seems to be slowly dissapearing. The CA comic had damage all along the right edge of the front cover. It also seems to have almost gone.

 

As far as storage goes, the CA is underneath a stack of Tales of Suspense Comics about 40 deep, (remember store my comics flat) and the JIM is right at the top of a pile of JIM's. (I don't have 83 yet). So, weight on top of the comic is not a factor.

 

I have taken an iron to them (yes, very gently) just to see if it would help, but the improvement was minimal.

 

The only explanation I have, is my house has had a pretty dry environment, especially in the winter months. (Not now because I just got a humidifier installed)

So, is it possible to remove humidity damage by simply taking the comic out of the high humidity environment, and storing it in a dry environment?

 

Based on my experience, I'd have to say yes.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

 

 

[jjreason-migration]

I bought copies of X-Men 112 and 113 about 2 years ago, both arrived from the same seller with a wave to them. They're now nearly perfectly flat. I store them in regular Silver Age bags with boards, pressed between my other issues of Uncanny. I had always figured it was the pressure of the full box pushing on the backing boards that flattened them out, but a decrease in humidity may have contributed. Regardless, it was nice to see.

[fantastic_four]

Are you sure that humidity can cause "waves" like that? I'm not saying it can't, but it seems like it'd have to be an awfully humid environment for this to happen, like maybe tropical-forest-humid or sauna-humid. I wonder how high the humidity has to be for that effect to become visually evident? When I see those wavy comics, I always figure it's due to direct contact with some quantity of water at some point in the past, but I could be wrong.

 

I know the main thrust of your question wasn't about humidity, but on how to get rid of the damage...can't help you with that but you made me think more about extreme humidity than I have in the past and now I'm curious.

[garthgantu]

Yeah, FF's got a point... it seems more likely that the original damage was done by direct contact with water... not a total soaking, but something between drizzling rain and heavy fog. I've certainly seen this sort of damage before, but never really stopped to think about exactly what caused it.

 

As for why it's gone away, that's a toughy... I suppose moving the book(s) to a really dry environment might remove some lingering moisture and cause the book(s) to "tighten up" somewhat...? (I would have opted for the "pressing" effect, but you stated that couldn't be a factor

[ninanina]

Good question guys and I do have an answer from personal experience. I can only comment on the conditions the Captain America 100 were stored in because I purchased many books from that collection. The majority of the comics were not damaged. However, I did see "mould" or "foxing" on comics as recent as Daredevil 168, just to give you some idea of the conditions of storage.

 

A stack of Tales of Suspense were piled from about 44 or so all the way to 99. From 44 to about 65 they were soaked. The comics from about 75 - 99 actually survived and graded at about VF. All from humidity. Comics were stored in a small room from the floor to the ceiling in the BASEMENT. Some even stuck against an outside wall above the rafters. I remember the lady that sold me the books tell me the basement didn't leak. So, all the damage was from humidity. And some, like the CA 100 only had a bit of rippling along the right edge.

 

This was a small 7 or 800 square foot 2 story home that pretty much had no room in it to store a collection this massive. Not only was the room in the basement piled to the rafters, but his bedroom had about 20 long boxes of the more modern 80's/90's stuff. So the basic problem was there was no room to store these comics properly. And NONE were bagged, sadly even the ones in the long boxes.

 

This collector purchased literally every Marvel, DC, Eerie, Creepy, Vamperella Walt Disneys, Gold Key since about 1965, so you can begin to understand his dilemna with space.

 

I feel it was my familiarity with this type of damage that allowed me to get the Journey Into Mystery 84 for about $268.00 US. The seller mentioned waves on the cover that seemed to have been caused by water, but couldn't understand how as water never leaked anywhere. I emailed her and she made it very clear there were no water stains, so I knew this comic could have been quite nice. I have a feeling mentioning water in the sell site may have scared away a lot of bidders. When I got the comic, the damage wasn't nearly as bad as she made it sound, so naturally I was pretty happy with my purchase.

 

So, there definitely is such a thing. I'm happy that it's just not me experiencing this phenomenom with the ripples slowly disapearing. I'm amazed how this type of damage can slowly dissapear by removing the comic from the damaging conditions, and storing it properly.

 

Thanks for the interest.