Cards and water don't mix

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Posted By: Eric (goudeyhunter)

Hey everyone,

Just an off-topic bit of advice I'd like to pass along to everyone. Tuesday night our home was flooded, and a good two feet of water managed to fight its way into every room of our lower floor (including a crawl space). Although my wife and I are most concerned about the structure of our home, and the furniture that was exposed, I wanted to pass along some simple advice about storing cards. I had the cards amassed in my youth stored in our crawl space, in plastic protective bins. At least most of them. I had several monster boxes of cards that were out in the open and not protected, and are now gone.

So just a quick reminder to everyone..keep all of your cards in a place where no water could possibly get to them. I know this is common sense that everyone know's..but sometimes we don't remember what mother nature can do to our home! Thankfully, I only lost contemporary cards that I won't lose sleep over. But it could have been a lot worse!! Take care.

Eric

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Posted By: Maxx (John)

Good advice, sorry too hear about your misfortune. Good luck with your current situation.

Maxx

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Posted By: dan mckee

This same thing happened to us, electric was out and sump pump didn't function. My 1971 and 1962 topps sets were completely submerged for hours in plastic sheets. We stayed up all night with friends and family and neighbors carefully removing each card and placing them between towels with books on top. Both sets were saved! I think I had to replace about a dozen 1971 topps where the black borders were destroyed during removal. Water and cards do mix! My 1962 set was vg/ex and is now EX with no creases! They were all flattened out. Dan

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Posted By: Jeff McKee

If you have city water in your house you can install a back up sump pump. The pump runs on water pressure and needs no electricity.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

we don't have basements, so we never get sump type flooding. I store 'em in plastic holders (mostly top loaders with sleeves inside) in plastic tubs up high anyway. LA would need to be under 7+ feet of H2O to affect them. You need to look for a positive seal with your storage tubs; by that I mean a condition where water will not get inside the box without flowing upwards against gravity. Think lids with lips that overlap the box sides.

We do get earthquakes. My collection rode out the 1994 Northridge EQ without a single ding, in a home that was completely destroyed, because I am such a bug for holdering.

You might also consider insurance.

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Posted By: Hankron

I don't have a basement either (live on the side of a hill, so one side is like a basement, the other is not). However, as water problems and even the occasional mudslide is normal where I live, I quickly learned to keep all my paper items at least 2 feet off the ground ... And, the other thing I learned, when you put something on the floor to photograph, make sure the dogs are on the other side of closed doors.