Is Mylar really healthy for paper (comics) preservation? even some archivist not! 3 3

[Bomber-Bob]

I recently went through a couple long boxes of OO stuff, circa mostly 80's, all Marvel with the flimsy paper stock. Most of the books were unbagged and the pages were much too toasty for me. However, about 10% were in plastic bags and the pages were gorgeous. The bags were really old and yellow to the point that you could hardly see the title of the book, old produce bags but taped shut, no boards. The cover colors on the bagged books were also excellent, really popped. The morale of the story, any kind of storage to keep the air out, even the worst type possible will help. 

[JollyComics]

Mylar is great but putting in and pulling out of the Mylar makes me nervous. It can damage the spine of vintage comic books. I can see why CGC asks us to use the regular bags before submitting the books. I intend to replace the old bags with the fresh new bags every time.

[namisgr]

6 hours ago, JollyComics said:

Mylar is great but putting in and pulling out of the Mylar makes me nervous. It can damage the spine of vintage comic books. I can see why CGC asks us to use the regular bags before submitting the books. I intend to replace the old bags with the fresh new bags every time.

I'm not sure how mylar might cause spine damage, but if that's somehow a real concern then you could consider using Mylites.  I use the thinnest 1 mm thick bags with full buffered backing boards to provide rigidity and have been happy with them for over 20 years now.  For high value books, one can slip the mylite into a full 4 mm mylar for extra protection.

From my experience, the storage risks in addition to those related to temperature, light, and humidity are over-stuffing storage boxes and the risk of physical damage from stacking longboxes on top of one another.

Edited March 25, 2018 by namisgr

[JollyComics]

1 hour ago, namisgr said:

I'm not sure how mylar might cause spine damage, but if that's somehow a real concern then you could consider using Mylites.  I use the thinnest 1 mm thick bags with full buffered backing boards to provide rigidity and have been happy with them for over 20 years now.  For high value books, one can slip the mylite into a full 4 mm mylar for extra protection.

From my experience, the storage risks in addition to those related to temperature, light, and humidity are over-stuffing storage boxes and the risk of physical damage from stacking longboxes on top of one another.

Mylite and regular bags are much safer for sliding in and out. I personally never bought the Mylar bags myself after I received the comic books were in Mylar bags. The books were hard to come out so I had to cut the bags. Mylar bags come in few different sizes but they are pricey. I put my books in the safe places.

[lizards2]

1 hour ago, JollyComics said:

2 hours ago, namisgr said:

I'm not sure how mylar might cause spine damage, but if that's somehow a real concern then you could consider using Mylites.  I use the thinnest 1 mm thick bags with full buffered backing boards to provide rigidity and have been happy with them for over 20 years now.  For high value books, one can slip the mylite into a full 4 mm mylar for extra protection.

From my experience, the storage risks in addition to those related to temperature, light, and humidity are over-stuffing storage boxes and the risk of physical damage from stacking longboxes on top of one another.

Mylite and regular bags are much safer for sliding in and out. I personally never bought the Mylar bags myself after I received the comic books were in Mylar bags. The books were hard to come out so I had to cut the bags. Mylar bags come in few different sizes but they are pricey. I put my books in the safe places.

I think you're talking about the rigid snugs, 4 ml - I think the same way you do - they are too rigid and you risk damaging the spines unless they are way over-sized for the book.

[JollyComics]

On 3/25/2018 at 11:33 AM, lizards2 said:

I think you're talking about the rigid snugs, 4 ml - I think the same way you do - they are too rigid and you risk damaging the spines unless they are way over-sized for the book.

Right. I never ordered the bag but the sellers sent those books inside the mylar bags. The book is hard to pull out so I have to cut the bag opened. It happened once in a while.

[OrangeCrush]

On 3/25/2018 at 9:57 AM, namisgr said:

I'm not sure how mylar might cause spine damage, but if that's somehow a real concern then you could consider using Mylites.  I use the thinnest 1 mm thick bags with full buffered backing boards to provide rigidity and have been happy with them for over 20 years now.  For high value books, one can slip the mylite into a full 4 mm mylar for extra protection.

From my experience, the storage risks in addition to those related to temperature, light, and humidity are over-stuffing storage boxes and the risk of physical damage from stacking longboxes on top of one another.

Yeah, I have pulled out comics many times in Gerber's Mylites and have never had an issue. The key is to pull out the board with the comic on it as opposed to trying to grab the comic and pulling just the comics out. Given how smooth the surface of mylar is, one shouldn't have any problems at all unless they bagged and boarded a really thick comic using Mylites4's and even in those case as long as your gentle and pull out the board instead of grabbing onto the comic itself, one shouldn't have an issue. There is only one issue with Mylar that is inferior to Poly bags and that is the price. Mylar is definitely more expensive, but once you subtract the cost f what you would normally ppend on regular poly bags, its really not that big of a difference if you buy in bulk. Every other aspect of Mylar is VASTLY superior to poly-bags. 

I worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts for roughly 16 months during my junior and senior year at art school. I mostly worked in the archives/storage department, but they also let me work a couple months in the restoration deparment as that was a topic that really interested me. They used Mylar pretty much exclusively for anything paper or photography related. And that is the case with every other museum I am aware of as well, including the Library of Congress. 

In other words, Mylar is without question the highest quality material you can use to store various comics, autographs, historic papers, antqiue maps, etc. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by OrangeCrush

[PovertyRow]

On 3/28/2018 at 12:47 PM, OrangeCrush said:

In other words, Mylar is without question the highest quality material you can use to store various comics, autographs, historic papers, antqiue maps, etc. 

Well said! 

[jmg3637]

This  thread seems to be as good as any

I have used BCE mylites and  thin extenders for over 20 years now.  As far as I can tell in the books where those have been used there had been no degradation in that period.  The bags, books and boards still look absolutely like the day they were stored.

 

By question is about inserts into the bag/board combo

Specifically BCE Life-X-Tenders Plus

Has anyone used this product from Bill Cole?

They seem like they should help preserve books similar to the way that MicroChamber  paper does.

They start at $1.16  each with the suggestion of 2 per book.  Even in quantity of 1000  they are still 69.5 cents each SO I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with them.

I suppose that microchamber paper is an option,  but I did not find many suppliers of that, and did not want to use the much maligned CommicSupply.   MCP is still  more like 30 cents each in quantity but how effective are they versus the newer different BCE product

 

[lizards2]

Your comics are dying.