Cards in heat / humidity?

[jchcollins]

I sense that I'm freaking out a bit unnecessarily - but should I be worried when the AC temporarily goes out upstairs (where my modest, but beloved small collection of vintage lives in my closet...) for a few days, and temp goes up and the air feels sticky? Repair people are hopefully coming tomorrow, but this seems to keep happening to me this summer. Argh. By the way this is July in NC, and at least 90 degrees outside still now at 7 pm.

Again, I feel like I'm being silly, but my Mantle, Mays, Banks, Robinson, Koufax, Williams, Aaron and other HOF cards are now temporarily downstairs in the chilly AC. I know enough theoretically to realize that there is probably no true concern for a collection like this unless I would leave it in a steaming attic or dripping basement for months or years, but it makes me uneasy all the same. I've read some articles where people profess scientific solutions for card collections of all shapes and sizes. Some is just extreme advice, some people are trying to sell something - but it does get you to thinking.

Thoughts? I realize years after everyone in this forum is dead, our slabbed PSA cards will start to deteriorate and be worthless anyway, because of course the plastic will start to decompose and you know none of the TPG services currently use mylar sleeves like the HOF....

I digress.

[steve B]

It's probably just fine to relax.

While technically heat, humidity and temperature cycling aren't good for the cards it's more of a concern if you have poor storage materials as the heat will affect them more than the cards. Most modern storage materials are mostly ok in heat.

While I don't live as far south, we see 90 pretty often, and the occasional 100+ here in Mass. My house is from the 1880's and has no AC at all besides a couple window units and neither is in the room the cards are in. The places before that were pretty small, and had long stretches without AC. Other than the last few things I had in old vinyl pages, nothing has been affected at all. Even those weren't bad, the pages stuck to each other but didn't damage the cards.

Some collector a long time from now may curse me for not having a proper climate controlled room with backup power, but for most of us that's just not realistic.

Steve B

[irv]

Nothing but rain here in Southern Ontario lately but still some very humid days being so close to Lake Ontario.

With that being said, I am emptying our dehumidifier daily with all the moisture it is collecting.

Just curious if you guys also use one? Might not be a bad idea if you aren't?

[Zach Wheat]

Consider using old ammo boxes with a silica drying agent packet inside. The boxes are ultra portable and perfectly fit a PSA/SGC/BVG case. The best feature though is that they are designed to resist moisture and most of the re-habbed cases on the market have their gaskets replaced.

Gander Mountain has them at their Going Out of Business sale for $15. Not a bad way to add that extra measure of protection for the cards you don't keep in a security box at the bank.

Z

[irv]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Consider using old ammo boxes with a silica drying agent packet inside. The boxes are ultra portable and perfectly fit a PSA/SGC/BVG case. The best feature though is that they are designed to resist moisture and most of the re-habbed cases on the market have their gaskets replaced.

Gander Mountain has them at their Going Out of Business sale for $15. Not a bad way to add that extra measure of protection for the cards you don't keep in a security box at the bank.

Z

Interesting! I never thought about those as card holders, but like you mentioned, they'd likely work great.
Thanks for the info.

[mickey7mantle7]

I was actually going to buy a couple of the smaller ones from a local ammo/gun shop here in town for 12 bucks. They are perfect for storing graded cards.

[OlderTheBetter]

I live in St. Louis and have a large comic book collection in the basement. My dehumidifier runs year-round at around 40% and that seems to be good enough. I've never noticed anything going on with the paper down there.

That being said, the silica mentioned earlier in this thread is a very good idea for boxes that contain your good cards. I wouldn't worry about slabbed. They're waterproof and should survive most anything.

[irv]

Originally Posted by OlderTheBetter

I live in St. Louis and have a large comic book collection in the basement. My dehumidifier runs year-round at around 40% and that seems to be good enough. I've never noticed anything going on with the paper down there.

That being said, the silica mentioned earlier in this thread is a very good idea for boxes that contain your good cards. I wouldn't worry about slabbed. They're waterproof and should survive most anything.

Mine is set on auto, which regulates the humidity between 45 and 55%.
I emptied it last night around 10-11pm and just finished emptying it again, this morning, less than 12hrs later. It is 12.68 pints or 6 litres capacity.

Yesterday was another cloudy, rainy, damp day and today is as well. We also have central air, which, as most likely know, also helps dry the air up.