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Stacked comics
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21 posts in this topic

Spine roll. If you stack comics too high the staple side starts to curl upwards. Of course you can stack your comics, but it's recommended that you go no higher then 20 per stack (which in a person with a large collection's case could mean hundreds of tiny little stacks for them to prance around smirk.gif)

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Spine roll. If you stack comics too high the staple side starts to curl upwards. Of course you can stack your comics, but it's recommended that you go no higher then 20 per stack (which in a person with a large collection's case could mean hundreds of tiny little stacks for them to prance around smirk.gif)

 

This is called "PRESSING". If done properly, it can greatly improve the grade of some of your CGC submissions. smirk.gif

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If you alternate the spine side you could go higher that 20 and boards would help with spine roll. I'm sure that ninanina aka Herb will have some good advice here as his entire collection is stacked on shelves and hes got some serious books. For presentation its alot better after viewing Herb's collection and then seeing mine, a bunch of boxes the difference was noticeable. It might have preservation qualities as well with compression lessens air's ability to get at you books.

 

The Mile High were stacked were they not? Again someone who's collection is actually stacked (IE ninanina) would be the person to consult for tips on making this work.

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I've noticed that keeping them stacked does seem to correct minor wear on the books.

The reason I'm asking is because right now I'm getting back into comic collecting and while I sort through what I have and re-bag and board them, I've left some of them piled up. A new issue of X-Men left at the very bottom of a stack got warped looking across the very top- since it was not water damage I could only think this was a result of the weight on top of it.

On the matter of stacking books to keep air out- I wonder if you could you get the same effect by packing your long box completely full.

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Edgar Church's books were stacked floor to ceiling. Book lower in the stack have insane levels of preservation because the weight of the books above created a basically anaerobic environment.

 

No spine roll on those. He may have alternated spines. I'm not sure about that though. Who knows, the weight of everything may have just flattened the stacks like a pancake.

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RJ's super hg moderns were all stacked horizontally too - vertical stacking is convenient but will create slight defects on spines and on the lower edges/corners.

 

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RJ's super hg moderns were all stacked horizontally too - vertical stacking is convenient but will create slight defects on spines and on the lower edges/corners.

 

I wonder if it makes a difference whether the books start out in supple Mint (like the Church copies or the case of moderns) versus us latter-day collectors now stacking 40 to 60 year old paper? I'd be worried about spine cracking on the bottom of the stack in the case of books of less than perfect paper quality. Anyone got any first hand info on this one?

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Spine roll is caused by folding back the cover and interior pages. Everybody's seen people do this; it's the way a lot of people read magazines in such a way that they can hold it by using only one hand. It's called a "roll" because the back half of the book gets bent in such a way that it "rolls" over to where the spine used to be when the book was brand new. A lot of low grade books are like this, with the whiteness on the back cover heavily visible on the left side (and I don't mean from printing miswraps).

 

I know what you mean about the spine curving that occurs from comics being in a stack for too long...I personally call that a "spine curl" just to distinguish it from a spine roll. Spine curl is an almost nonexistent danger in my experience once comics are bagged and boarded. When you stack up a bunch of unbagged comics, you can see the side of the stack where the folded edges are sitting visibly higher than the side where the reading edge is, but in my stacks of bagged/boarded comics, they tend to lie flat. You can't even stack unboarded comics very high because the stack tips due to the raised spines, but I can stack boarded comics quite easily.

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Yeah, I suspect that's exactly why church alternated the spines, i.e. you would never be able to create a stable 7 foot stack without doing that.

 

Dan

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I'm sure that ninanina aka Herb will have some good advice here as his entire collection is stacked on shelves and hes got some serious books. For presentation its alot better after viewing Herb's collection and then seeing mine, a bunch of boxes the difference was noticeable. It might have preservation qualities as well with compression lessens air's ability to get at you books.

 

The Mile High were stacked were they not? Again someone who's collection is actually stacked (IE ninanina) would be the person to consult for tips on making this work.

 

Ok, I touched on this a few months back but here it is again. Been collecting for about 25 years and for all those years I have stacked my comics. As Jason mentioned, I now stack 2 comics to a bag and both covers can be seen when I flip the bag. I have absolutely no idea what the long term effect this will have on my collection, as I have only started doing this about 3 1/2 years ago. Some members have mentioned that the back covers may suffer "ink transfer" over time, and it just might.

 

As mentioned in a previous thread the books I have stored 1 to a bag the other 22 years, have for the most part suffered no negative effects. The NM comics I put in a bag are still NM.

 

Some of the members were quite surprised when I mentioned I re-bagged my collection for the first time about 3 years ago. The 20 year old bags, though quite yellow protected what was inside quite nicely. Although many of the bags did actually have dried mould on them, the comics inside were protected. This happened because at one time for a period of about 6 years, I had them stacked in a HUGE pile along an outside wall in the basement due to storage problems. (Didn't know any better at the time.) All the mould was along the outside edge of the bag that faced the wall.

 

Anyway, back to the stacking. What I did was pile 20 comics with the spine to the left, and 20 more with the spine going to the right side. The bags were quite slippery so this was done to keep the piles straight.

 

Again, no spine rolls on any of the comics and I had no problem piling them up 100 or 120 to a pile. During that 6 year stretch when I had the comics piled against the outside wall, some of the piles were well over 200 high.

 

Spine rolls do happen quite easily over time if you do pile 'em high without bags as a pile of 100 or 150 comics with the spine all on one side creates the dreaded "spine roll" effect. I can't help feeling doing this with a bagged comic may be more difficult as the pile does tend to start to lean just a bit after a while. So, I do believe many of the spine rolls you now see in comics, MAY be comics that have been stacked high, without bags. But, that's just an opinion based on the fact I do not have a spine roll problem storing them stacked in bags. To date, none of my comics have done so piled this way in the bags. I do however look at my collection from time to time and straighten out any wayward piles.

 

I have also been able to get some minor creasing and to a certain degree "humidity damage" reduced by simply placing a comic damaged this way at the bottom of a stack of 100 comics or so for a few months. I purchased a Journey Into Mystery 84 for a song on e-bay because of a little humidity damage on the cover and the damage is slowly disapearing.

 

These are just my personal experiences in stacking my collection. I can't honestly give any opinions on whether or not I would recommend it over the more traditional way of "upright c/w backing boards" way. Please consider I am not an ultra high grade collector like many on the board. I am certain some of those 9.4s and up NMs I purchased and bagged all those years ago, may have come down .2 or perhaps .4 points. The only long term damage I've noticed, is just a bit of curling on the corners. And that just might be enough for many of you to decide to stick with the backers and storing them upright. grin.gif

 

 

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Please consider I am not an ultra high grade collector like many on the board. I am certain some of those 9.4s and up NMs I purchased and bagged all those years ago, may have come down .2 or perhaps .4 points. The only long term damage I've noticed, is just a bit of curling on the corners. And that just might be enough for many of you to decide to stick with the backers and storing them upright. grin.gif

 

 

893scratchchin-thumb.gif Hmmm, I'd sure like to have some of your non-high grade collection tongue.gif especially that entire run of SA Green Lantern from 1 up alot of them looked 9.0 to me. 893applaud-thumb.gif

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Spine roll is caused by folding back the cover and interior pages. Everybody's seen people do this; it's the way a lot of people read magazines in such a way that they can hold it by using only one hand. It's called a "roll" because the back half of the book gets bent in such a way that it "rolls" over to where the spine used to be when the book was brand new. A lot of low grade books are like this, with the whiteness on the back cover heavily visible on the left side (and I don't mean from printing miswraps).

 

I remember when I was younger, I used to see my cousins do their comics this way and was like...'whoa, what a cool way to read a comic!' crazy.gif

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What I did was pile 20 comics with the spine to the left, and 20 more with the spine going to the right side. The bags were quite slippery so this was done to keep the piles straight.

 

This method has worked well for me, alternate the spines so the stack stays level and use plenty of backer boards. I don't know if floor to ceiling is such a great idea, but stacks of 100-200 or so don't seem to be a problem.

 

hth,

dave h

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sigh - - - I sure miss those carefree days. Didnt have to ;ock out the kids and the cats, put on theprotective gloves and mylar table colth and open the pages only halfway so as not to crease anything!!!

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sigh - - - I sure miss those carefree days. Didnt have to ;ock out the kids and the cats, put on theprotective gloves and mylar table colth and open the pages only halfway so as not to crease anything!!!

 

Dont forget the special light and filtered air while wearig a gas mask!

 

 

You are using tweezers on those pages and did transport them home using a special anti gravity transport airconditioned truck?

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On 7/25/2003 at 10:42 PM, ninanina said:

 

 I have absolutely no idea what the long term effect this will have on my collection, as I have only started doing this about 3 1/2 years ago. Some members have mentioned that the back covers may suffer "ink transfer" over time, and it just might.

 

 

When you stacked your comics originally, were they bagged or unbagged?  I ask because I'm starting to bag and board sets and runs so they're 2 books facing forward, 2 books facing back, with a board in the middle in a Golden Age mylar.  If your comics were unbagged when you stacked them and there was no ink transfer, I'm guessing the same would apply in a mylar, right?

Edited by Comics Altruism
First message, unfamiliar with how this works. Better now.
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