Baseball HOF Says No to Slabbed Cards

[Rookiemonster]

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?

[Orioles1954]

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

[Hot Springs Bathers]

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.

[Pilot172000]

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.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Pilot172000

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.

+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

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Hot Springs Bathers

For many the protection factor is to preserve the item not the value of the item.

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

[bn2cardz]

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.

[bmattioli]

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

[Exhibitman]

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.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

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.

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

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by Rookiemonster

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?

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

[conor912]

Originally Posted by vintagebaseballcardguy

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.

[iowadoc77]

Originally Posted by conor912

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

The age-old conundrum of old balls...

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by conor912

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

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