Free Sample Pack of Mylar Sleeves

[Exhibitman]

Just wanted to chime in that I purchased some of the holders and they arrived today. I am pleased with the product and the service. Nicer and better turn times than the two others I'd used before.

The ones I bought 250 of are 1951-52 Bowman sized, which fit nicely into 9 pocket pages with some room to spare at the top and sides but don't have enough room to really flop around. Delivered for $5 flat rate.

This will be my new mylar supplier.

[jchcollins]

Hi Rick,

I must admit I'm fascinated by the whole "archival" subject as it involves cards, so I will send you an email and take you up on your offer. I've been meaning to try something mylar for probably the better part of 5 years now, but never have gotten around to it.

As for the overall, I know it's been debated in other posts here even on Net54, but my questions around doing something like this wholesale, all-in, say I take the couple hundred "valuable" unslabbed cards in my vintage collection now - most of which reside in standard Ultra-Pro toploaders and penny sleeves - and make the investment of time and materials to get them all into mylar - will naturally come down to whether or not it's really worth it for me to do this? I'm familiar with the proposition of a museum being interested in preserving something for the next several hundred to several thousand years - while if we are being honest, I'm interested mostly in preserving this Roberto Clemente card, and that Johnny Bench card - for er, maybe the next 50 years tops. Longer than that if I get my daughters interested in my card collection and I can then pass them on, but honestly who knows. They are interested in legoes, makeup, and clothes at the moment...

So really - am I going to see any difference in the appearance of my cards under magnification in the next 40-50 years or so, with my nicer (say EX, EX-MT) cards from the 1950's and 60's if I take the time to switch everything to mylar? I'm not even talking about keeping them in their SAME penny sleeves and toploaders for that period of time. I'm a bit more anal than that about my hobby supplies - and being someone who looks at their cards frequently, has been known to change holders due to minor aesthetic issues, flips through stacks of toploaders a lot, even carries / transports cards around at times - I can assure you that I am FAR more likely to change out my entire collection of toploaders and penny sleeves every 5-7 years than I am just to leave a random Mickey Mantle card sitting, collecting dust on my shelf in the closet in the same sleeve and holder for the next 30 years. I like nice looking cards, and nice looking holders. So my question really comes back down to - is it worth it? What if I set my Apple reminders to change out all toploaders and all penny sleeves with totally new product every 5 years? Does that help? From all I have ever seen, even with older stuff and PVC - you really have to be careless for quite a few decades, as well as unlucky - to get a holder to disintegrate to the point where it actually produces a noticeable effect on a card.

I guess in the end right now, I'm just not convinced that I need to make an overall painstaking investment in mylar, when I'm going to very much likely be dead in 50 years, or shortly thereafter. Does that make sense? Going to the LCS or even freaking Walmart to restock on "standard" hobby supplies - even repetitively - would seem to be a lot simpler. I will admit I might could be convinced though, if Rick's product is easy to use and works with conventional larger holders to put the mylar into.

Thanks for any thoughts.

[steve B]

As someone mostly disinterested... I don't sell supplies, but I've used Mylar, as well as sleeves and toploaders and... Pretty much most hobby supplies that have become available since 1974/5

There are a few benefits beyond how long they last and how they don't interact with what's inside them.

They are a lot clearer than even the new penny sleeves, which are much better than some of the older ones. If there's something that has better clarity than Mylar I haven't seen it. (The first were polyethylene the newer ones are polypropylene. Mylar is polyester. All three are ok archivally, but Mylar is considered to be the best. )

It has a lot more natural stiffness than the penny sleeves. (At least the ones I used had a lot more. ) Think more like cardsaver stiffness. So if you aren't constantly handline the cards, you may not need toploaders.

In a "worst case" scenario. Mylar sleeve with enough room- like a T206 in a sleeve sized for 57-? Topps can self seal to some extent. Which could keep them from water damage. Mylar melts at almost 500F polypropylene at 320F, polyethylene at somewhere between 248-356 F depending on the type. The sleeves were almost certainly the lower end of that.
So A Mylar sleeve near a fire so the sleeve/card gets hot but not hot enough to burn, will probably be ok. The others may melt and laminate to the card.

Even if you're inclined to replace the holders every few years. I'm not, and with a bigger collection, just don't have the time or money.
With Mylar, replacing the sleeves isn't a "must do" sort of thing.

All that being said, I am the sort of person inclined to leave a card in a holder for a very long time. I think I stopped using the pages from 1974 sometime in the early 90's. They were 9 pocket side load, with no extra space so the two rows where the opening faced each other got worn on the edges. I do still have a handful of cards in PVC pages, and more in the first generation of non-PVC pages and some holders from maybe 1980? 81?

None have suffered any damage, aside from a couple I may have creased slightly removing them from the pages.

I've had both penny sleeves and Mylar in a situation that was pretty abusive. I forgot a couple cards on a windowsill...a sunny windowsill... For a couple years The penny sleeves were too brittle to handle, the Mylar was still perfect.

Archivally, changing out the holders periodically is probably fine, but there's always the chance of damaging the item while handling it.