questons about Balldome cases
 

Hello everyone,

I am fairly new to net 54, this will be my first post. I know there are many threads about autographed baseball storage, which I have viewed. I would like to get everyone's feedback on what they think of the Ball dome by memorabilia factory. I have 5 of them for some of my baseballs, but recently took them out and placed them in an archival storage box with dividers that holds 12 baseballs. Under the baseballs I put acid free tissue paper, the box is kept in a closet under a closed lid.

Anyways, I had talked to the owner of this product in which he was very kind to tell me how they are made with museum grade acrylic with the highest grade of UV layer coating. Now from reading other post, air tight is not good for signed baseballs as they need to breathe. Though the ball dome is designed to match the contour of the baseball, so it fits nice and snug, my concern is, is there enough air flow to allow the baseball to breathe and could there be a long term effect? By the way I do love the product, I am not trying to knock it down. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

anyone, i know there are tons of knowledgeable collectors on here

Hi Christian, I can't speak to the ball dome cases but I think this is an interesting question in general. I imagine you might have seen the recent interview with the Cooperstown archivist who said that anything plastic and nonbreathable is bad for baseballs. Makes sense. I don't use the ball domes, but like many I use the Ultra Pro UV cubes and keep the room blacked out as much as possible 95% of the time.

I understand that archival acid free boxes offer more protection from off-gassing and oils... but at the same time, I don't feel like that's any way for me to enjoy my collection. I have had minimal toning/bleeding/fading (knock on wood) thus far, but I've only been collecting autographed baseballs for the last 8ish years.

I'd be curious what more seasoned collectors have to say in regard to their experiences with keeping balls in cubes over longer spans of time?

Never used the balldome cases, but I have had signed baseballs in the square cubes, some of them for over 25 years with no issues. Just keep them out of direct sunlight and light for most of the time.

Same here. I have used square ballcubes for over 30 years with no issues.
Keep them out of direct sunlight ;)

Thanks for the feedback from you three, from reading past threads about this, it’s Such a bummer that in time your autographed baseballs will slowly fade. Some people even stop collecting them because of this. Though, I would hope if you do an adequate job of preserving them, it would take a very long time for them to fade, maybe a lifetime is what I like to think.

The problem is that there are a lot of variables with autographed baseballs. The pen used is important (some ink will fade), pressure used by the signer, how the ball is stored (sunlight kills), how much the ball is handled (oils from your hand will cause the spot toning you see sometimes, and last but not least, the ball itself. Some years seem to be much better for accepting the ink. Not sure if it's the manufacturing process in some years, or what. Bottom line, try to control what you can control and chances are you'll be fine. By the way, I have 150 plus balls and have only had a couple of them that had problems over the past 35 years.

I hear you mike, spot on. Good to hear that your baseballs have help up, that’s what I’m looking for.