Posted By:
Gilbert MainesAl: you raise many issues, all directed at the impracticality of my proposal. Lets investigate one for example:
"I can't even imagine what it would take to find out whether your slab is impervious to acidic air pollutants. To me, it sounds like you'd have to find out the chemical composition of the air in all different parts of the country and all different altitudes. Then you'd have to actually MAKE some slabs, and slab every type of baseball card there is, using every type of ink and every type of paper. Then you'd have to come up with some way to do accelerated life testing using all the paper/ink combos and all the chemical/altitude combos, and artificially age the slabs - how long? 100 years? 200"?
Perhaps I was unclear, Al. I do not care whether the slab itself is affected by air pollution, because the affects of pollution on plastic are typically considered to not be severe.
I care about the card, which is far more susceptible than the plastic; is protected from air pollutants. To achieve this, I recommend controlling the air which goes into the air tight slab with the card. This air ideally would also be adjusted for relative humidity to assure the optimum conditions exist in the air tight holder for long term storage.
And in regard to enormous amounts of R&D money - what? to create an air tight container?
And the confusion regarding the difference between a 65 and 67 - the coin hobby has enjoyed this level of accuracy for years now.
Now Im not sure that I would buy the slab product which I described above, but Im certainly not buying what is currently offered.
Plus what has been outlined in the suggestion above is incomplete. I would want the holder to be flame resistent (i.e. would not burn), have a melting point above the card's kindling point (~400F), and provide good thermal insulation for the card.
Edited to add: Certainly there are costs associated with the proposed change in holdering. But if embraced by the collecting community, there are significant potential profits too. Reslabbing everything they have done so far is one potential profit center.