Baseball HOF Says No to Slabbed Cards
 

Baseball HOF Says No to Slabbed Cards
 

Mylar and polypropylene are fine, but the safest way still to store baseball cards is in a house in Ohio.

Thank you for sharing..
 

Interesting article. It gives me pause on the slabs. I am more concerned however on my vintage photo's, post cards, etc. - more so than the cardboard (bball cards)

Mylar... Hmmm What do you guys use for Vintage Photo's ?

Thanks again, for sharing -

I've long wondered about the plastics used at TPGs. That's why every graded card I buy gets immediately cracked out and put into mylar.

[REMOVED] This forum is done.

woah

Interesting article.

Would have liked to know The Hall's method of cracking out: tinsnips at the corners for PSA and screwdriver wedged into the seam for SGC?

Also, why all the conservation? They are like a iceberg - the majority of upstairs exhibits are permanent and the vast majority of stuff I'd really like to see remain hidden in perpetual storage and never see the light of day. The first time I visited a was a treat and my second visit years later just redundant.

The article said it was preserving for future generations, which I get. But, to your point, if it never sees the light of day, what's the point?

Fifteen years ago was the first time I visited The Hall. We were vacationing about and hour from there with another family. My son was five years old then so he stayed behind and my friend and I went over. Flash forward to last year and my son was just a few months shy of turning 20. It so happens that again he we were not all that far, just passing through the generall area, so we made the detour. To my son it was a good time, to me pretty much the same. But wasn't he supposed to be "the new generation", or is he now the current? What will it be like if he ever returns in the future? Will he have the same reaction I had that second time? The Hall stays stagnant and I guess generations are just supposed to "age into" and then "age out of it".

Has PSA ever responded to anything?

The first Related Post under that SCD article is where SCD interviews both PSA and SGC on their Card Grading process. So I think if the author waited a little longer, PSA and SGC would have responded.

Also, I wonder why Beckett wasn't contacted. According to their website, their inner sleeve is: "Each card is protected by a crystal clear archival inner sleeve to prevent the holder itself from damaging the card. Each card will be virtually free of internal movement." I wonder if it is mylar?

No
 

Gary,

The Beckett insert is not Mylar but I still like the fact that they at least protect the card from moving around with their sleeve. If I was a TPG right now, I'd be investing in Mylar sleeve coverings for each card before slabbing. Sounds like a pretty easy fix. Which of course means that it will never happen! :)

Peace, Mike

Mylar
 

I collect old surfing magazines as well as baseball cards and I store every magazine in a Mylar sleeve backed by an acid free piece of cardboard to
reduce any humidity and provide stability. It will be interesting to watch in 10 or 20 years how the slabs hold up...

I agree. It's silly. If they're going to keep them locked away for decades on end, they should just put them in a rocket and blast them into outer space where there's no light, humidity or oxygen.

Let me start by saying I will not be visiting Gaylord.com! Or searching it for how to take care of my balls.

Other wise very informative article. Do they make Mylar top loaders?

I would never donate anything to the Hall of Fame. It's throwing money and property down the drain.

The Baseball Hall of Fame never grows old, their exhibits change on a constant basis. If you have something you want to see like their T3 collection you just have to contact them before you go and they will arrange a showing for you.

Plus the old standards have to be there because every day is the first day for most of the visitors coming through, they all want to see the Ruth and Gehrig items.

Their conservation is second to none. While the Pro Football Hall of Fame now does a good job, the first time I went there I thought to myself "have they ever even been to Cooperstown?" People were touching AND pulling threads from Red Grange's sweater!

The folks at Gaylord have set the industry standards for preservation, every museum in the world uses them for their supplies, thus the large catalog.

Most of us want to spend our dollars on new cards or publications, I am very guilty of not preserving my collection because I want something new to fill a hole or to put on the wall. The fact of the matter is that you can't fault the people that are going the extra mile to protect their collections.

For many the protection factor is to preserve the item not the value of the item. TPGs have created a value standard in our hobby and while that puts many at ease, they probably do need to change their slabs.

The article does nothing to dissuade me from slabbing my prized possessions. I have however gone to BVG holders because they are rock solid and have the internal sleeve. PSA grades are better IMHO, but I have learned to buy the card not the grade. Unless they can prove that the plastics used in the slabbing process are hurting the cards, I believe that they stand a much better chance of preservation than being put in a top loader and left to chance.

Pursuant, to the first part of your post, caring for ones balls is a very important aspect of life.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I've spent many-a night wondering how I can preserve mine for future generations.

Ahhh
 

The age-old conundrum of old balls...

A Mylar baggie worked for me. I'm already recieving fan mail from posterity.

+1. I have cards slabbed from 20-25 years ago, and there's not even a hint of any kind of deterioration in their condition or reaction with the slab material. IMHO, when buying expensive cards, the risk is much greater if they are not TPG.

Best wishes,

Larry

It's an intriguing point to think that an item, and the value of it, are not always mutually exclusive.

The slabs don't make sense for any museum. They can authenticate their own stuff and they are not in the business of reselling their collections. There is no upside for them, yet a lot of down side when you think of how much space would be taken up because of them. It just seems like common sense that the HOF wouldn't keep their cards slabbed even if the plastic doesn't damage the card.

The workshop was open to the public for a $300.00 fee.. Oh my..

The article is very poorly researched and nothing new.

Mylar is the accepted standard storage material for paper artifacts at museums and the Library of Congress. It is considered inert and suitable for storage over hundreds of years. I don't think I will have my cards for more than 50 more years...so probably not a big deal.

Polypropylene is nearly inert. It isn't museum standard but it will last without changes for a very long time. The sheets are more likely to get scratched with handling than become unstable. I believe the card condoms in BVG holders are polypro.

I think I heard that the slabs at PSA and SGC are polystyrene, which is extremely resistant to acids as might be leached from cardboard.

I believe the threat to cards has been overstated. I have been collecting for 40 years. I have had cards stored in old vinyl pages and sleeves that have turned piss yellow and brittle as they have broken down. Not a single card has exhibited any staining indicative of any chemical migration.

For my good photos and paper items I use 4 mil Mylar pages from BCEmylar.com. They have two versions that come three-hole punched so you can easily store them in notebooks. For cheapo items I use Ultra Pro sheets, sometimes with an inner sleeve as well. For odd sized items, if they are smaller than 8 x 10 I usually use a smaller Mylar holder from BCE and put it into an Ultra Pro 8 x 10 sheet. That seems to be both secure and nice to look at. I like to flip through my albums regularly. I treat my postcards like photos.

I think you mean "Whoa".

I hope slabs currently made do a decent job of protecting the cards. Most collectors own some. I have all 3 of the big TPGs holders and am fine with it. Plus on occasion, when one is slightly mishandled it's not a big deal. To each their own though.

I second that Leon. I'd say I drop at least one slabbed card a month in circumstances that would likely wreck a card in a card saver or top loader. Ever since I creased the crap out of a Hank Greenberg card I never underestimate the power of my clumsiness.

I also affirm Adam's endorsement of BCEmylar.com. Bill Cole Enterprises produces top of the line MYLAR products. I've used them for years. They're not cheapie shlock; rather, pure quality protection for your treasured photos and sports cards. Worth every penny.:D ---Brian Powell

There are a lot of good points made here.

What most people have a hard time with is the differing concerns, attitudes and budget of museums and private collectors.

Major museums usually have at least passable budgets, and are in things for the very long haul. For them, Mylar is almost the only current choice since they look at minimizing damage at any level. Some chemical damage can accelerate over time. Since Museums want to work on a time scale that most of us would consider to be "forever" a holder that's good for hundreds of years is entirely appropriate. (There are things that don't do as well in Mylar, but I'll stick to paper things. Library of Congress has lots of information on archival storage and conservation)

Smaller museums may not do as well, and the least well funded probably do a worse job of it than many serious collectors.

Most collectors limit their decisions to how long they believe they'll own the card, and are influenced to varying degrees by budget.
That's mostly ok, if a bit shortsighted. Assuming someone might own stuff for 50 years, most holders will be ok. The old PVC pages aren't. While they don't always cause damage and staining, they can. Screwdowns also can have issues, although I think they're better than the PVC pages.
I've used PVC pages and almost everything that has come along. Some of my earlier pages haven't even yellowed, but did get brittle. Some yellowed without getting brittle yet even though I expect they would have. But I've bought cards in albums that were stuck inside the pages, as well as what I'm sure many of us have experienced - the pages all being stuck to each other making removing the cards without damage a lengthy process.

Most of the currently available supplies are actually pretty good. Cardsavers, toploaders, penny sleeves- all of them are better than nothing.
Slabs may be polystyrene, but I think polycarbonate is more likely. Both are fairly stable,(Comparing them to Mylar, the difference between but Polycarbonate blocks UV a bit although uv can degrade it over time.

Penny sleeves will become brittle and start disintegrating into small brittle flakes after 3-5 years of direct exposure to sunlight. No damage to the card inside surprisingly.

Doing really correct archival storage is fairly expensive, so nearly everyone opts for the almost as good but less expensive solutions. I can't do the environmental controls - 40-45% relative humidity and 64F +/- 2F the cost of doing that in a house from the 1880's would be insane. And since many of the cards I have are modernish, a mylar sleeve for each one is also out of the question.

But the better stuff gets what I can afford that's fairly close to archival.

The other concern for collectors is display, handling, and eventual sale. I have some cards slabbed. I won't be around forever, and either my wife or the kids will probably have an easier time selling and get a bit more if some of the card are slabbed. Plus I can let the kids hold the slab to look at the cards, something I wouldn't do without a very stiff holder.
Sure, I have long term concerns about some sorts of cardboard in a slab, especially acidic stuff like strip cards or most cards from the 40's till about 1992. (And beyond, some of the Plastic card made by Collectors Edge have yellowed. ) Most T cards are probably just fine.

As far as time goes, I see enough cards with the diagonally striped paper loss from being stored in a "magnetic" photo album. Those were not horrible for short term storage of modern photos, but any sort of long term storage and whatever is in them gets badly stuck. I wish the people using them had thought beyond the "why buy the right pages when this entire album is only $3?" or even not being concerned because they wouldn't be the ones trying to remove the stuff 25 years later.


Steve B

I have a bit of anecdotal experience to add to this thread.

I recently received a binder of 1959 Topps cards from my father, which he had been keeping in storage for roughly 35 years. The set was stored in 9 page sleeves from some brand I'd never heard of. Probably one of the first brands to start making plastic pages. Whatever plastic they used had yellowed and degraded to the point you could barely see the cards, but when I pulled them out I was delighted to find them in pack fresh condition with crisp colors and bright white borders. I had many graded PSA 8 & 9.

So thirty years in yellowing mystery plastic didn't seem to harm them at all. Hardly conclusive, but I wouldn't worry too much about the type of plastic you're using for storage...