Moisture: the safe deposit box's worst enemy.

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by glchen

Hi Ian, I didn't remark upon this in your original thread, but you live in San Francisco, I believe, and I live near you in the Oakland/Alameda area. Is there really that much humidity here? The Bay Area practically has the same temperature all year round, and even during the wet winter months, I don't think the humidity is all that bad. If it's more inland, I could understand. I don't bother with desiccants for my card collection. However, I do have a growing stamp collection, where I am thinking of desiccants as I think the gum on the stamps may be much more sensitive than cardboard stock. However, as long as I keep my cards in a living area or at the bank safety deposit box, I'm not too worried. (I do admit my garage does become hot and humid sometimes as there is not much air circulation there.)

Hey Gary, agree there is definitely not the hot Houston style humidity here (went running in Houston 3 weeks back, sheesh), but plenty of cool air humidity... and extreme micro climates (SF and Oakland can be different worlds) as I'm sure you know. I lived for years in what had been a brand new apartment building in South of Market (near AT&T Park), where it's generally sunnier than the west side of the city. That place always felt dry, and while living there I'd honestly never even heard of desiccants, let alone considered using them. I'm now over in Cole Valley, bordering the Sunset where we get a lot more fog. Our building is also much older and poorly insulated compared to my old one. The stuff in my closets, and especially my 1st floor building storage gets and stays pretty moist, even when sunny out. I started to use those carboard box/pouch desiccants here for my closet and within a few days that little strip starts to go from blue to pink. I have had a few autographed balls go south on me since living here, so I moved them all to a separate storage unit over in Protrero/Dog Patch.

That said, I think whatever's going on in my bank's vault (which is central in a large building) has very little to do with the local outdoor climate and probably more to do with whatever is going on in the bank itself. For one, there's a Starbucks in the lobby, with lots of steamy lattes and mochas being made all day. The vault entrance also looks to be surrounded by the bathrooms. Not sure if either of these things contribute, but would think any sort of open water source and/or condensation within the building could create some humidity.. heck, even a coffee maker in a room with no windows or ventilation will probably make it pretty humid. That WS ticket stub was fine in its sleeve for about 2 years in my apartment, but within a 6 mths- 1year of depositing it in my bank, it's front had completely stuck onto the plastic case. It tore off completely when I tried to remove it. I definitely don't have an inner guage for relative humidity, but know when I feel it.. and it feels a little stuffy in that vault as compared with the rest of the bank.

Anyway, my original reason for posting that thread was to see if anyone else had experienced anything like me with desiccant (or whatever they were) beads, and know I'm definitely not complaining about my bank or safe deposit boxes in general. I like my bank, have had my cards there for years, and don't really want to go through the process of finding a new medium/large size box. Wait lists are apparently long, and I'm pretty sure I'm grandfathered into a nice rate. Another minor consideration being in SF, was elevation and good bedrock, which is good come earthquake/tsunami time... and my bank's definitely got that. All in all, I feel much safer keeping my most valuable cards in a box there, and the issue has not seemed to affect much else.

I will say this though, and think my experience backs it- it seems to me moisture can be present anywhere (bank vault, storage unit, etc), regardless of where you live or the weather. Again just think coffee maker with no windows, or a leaky pipe, or whatever. If it makes you feel a little more secure using some desiccant packets (it does me), then you should do it. If not, I'm sure it'll be fine most of the time too.

Bill--- again, hope this doesn't make you paranoid, your box will be fine... and I highly doubt you'll have bags of beads liquify on you!! Seems I'm the only lucky one there.