John Pannell has a post on storing or preserving your collection. It was sparked by a question Bill Griesmyer on Patch-L.
I have several neckerchiefs that are still in their original plastics bags. Should I remove them and put them in UltraPro sheets or leave them alone? I must admit that they have been there for about three decades, but better late then never.
John commented:
I noted that there seems to be a mindset in our hobby to only care about how the memorabilia will hold up during the collecting lifetime of the current owner. Since many bigger collectors are already middle aged or older, this represents a time span of a few decades at best. There doesn’t seem to be a sensitivity towards preserving stuff for posterity’s sake.
My storage methods are to use acid-free BCW or Ultra Pro pages with acid free comic boards cut to size. Probably better than some, but may not be ideal. I use 1,2,4, and 6 pocket pages. The collection is in 2 and 3 inch D ring binders and protected from the sun and light.
If the neckerchief is in its original undamaged plastic bag, I keep it in it. If the bag is torn or damaged I remove it, before storing the neckerchief. Currently each neckerchief is placed in its own plastic bag before I put it in the binder. I’ve not backfilled all of the older neckerchiefs into individual bags, but do bag them when I add a new item to that lodge’s binder.
All of my dupes are in plastic in one form or another, but not acid-free.
How do you store your collection?
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