| |
Comic Book Supplies, Necessities Of The Serious Collector
By Dave Gieber
Below, you'll find
extensive information on leading comic book supplies articles and
products to
help you on your way to success.
If you want to keep
your comic book collection in tiptop shape, comic book supplies will
become part of your collecting life. As soon as a magazine is printed
there are natural environmental forces going to work to try and destroy
the ink and the paper. You have put in a lot of time, effort and
enjoyment in acquiring all your comics. You don’t want them to turn
back to the dust and elements from which they came do you?
Elements such as humidity,
temperature, pollutants, human skin oils and even the chemicals of the
printed materials themselves, will start to deteriorate and discolor
your
from day one. Tools that have been developed over
the years to help us combat these natural forces are de-acidification
paper, polymer type storage bags, stiff backing material, storage boxes
and desiccants (dehumidification materials). Not only will these comic
book supplies protect your comics for your own enjoyment, they will add
to reinforce the future value of each comic book.
Most all of these supplies
can typically be located down at your local comic book shop. But as I
have discovered lately, there can be a world of difference in
preservation abilities depending on what materials are used in the
manufacture of comic book supplies. Quite typically what you may find
downtown will be of sufficient protective quality to protect your
comics for quite a while. Although, polybags, to put your comics into,
are quite common and fairly cheap, Mylar bags are definitely the way to
go. They will protect for 100 years (that may be a little overboard) as
opposed to 2 or 3 years for poly.
There has been a lot of
elaborate science, particularly chemistry, which has gone into
preservation material manufacturing the last several years.
MicroChamber material has been developed that will increase
preservation from de-acidification and environmental breakdown for a
vastly superior time period as opposed to typical materials available
today. Beware though, comic book supplies manufactured with this new
material can become quite costly. But if you have some serious
collector’s items, which you feel are worth a significant amount of
cash, isn’t the investment worth it? It is also no secret that CGC uses
these materials in every comic book they grade.
I have created a page at my
comic book site, which incorporates links to some rather technical
scientific articles on preservation and using MicroChamber materials.
You can read an in-depth discussion at
www.comic-book-collection-made-easy.com/comic-book-supplies.html . Be
forewarned though, You may need a moderate understanding of chemistry
and physics to completely follow some of the discussions. But the
articles will open your eyes to what is available in the comic book
industry for preservation
supplies these days.
Now if you have a rather
rare back issue that may well have a high dollar value, here is a
process worth considering. De-acidification products are usually used
to neutralize acids in the paper prior to storage of most paper
products of a pulp nature. This is not to be taken lightly, as it is
considered by most to be an extensive form of restoration. The current
understanding of the process is that the staples are removed and the
sheets are submerged, film developer style, in a bath of
de-acidification material. Then the entire book is rebuilt with new
staples. This process can cost around $50 per comic book, when done by
a professional, but will restore and increase the life expectancy of
your comic book by many years. This process, in my opinion, should only
be considered for already deteriorated comics that may have a
considerable future worth if restored.
One final item to consider,
especially if you live in a high humidity area is the use of descants
within your storage boxes. A desiccant is a chemical sieve for water,
and isavailable for industry use in small packets or in buckets. For
our purposes an 8 oz can (that looks like you'd keep a grasshopper in)
can be simply put inside the box to absorb moisture and indicates when
it is full by changing from crystal colored to pink. These same cans
can then be reused by baking them for 3-4 hours in an oven at about 350
F. Each canister can cost around $9-$10 from one supplier called
GAYLORDMART. 1 canister per short box and 2 per long box should be
sufficient. Another consideration is the little packets typically found
in a box of shoes. These are even more inexpensive, but would require
further research to insure no harm would come to each comic book.
So as you build your
valuable comic book collection, you will want to put some serious
consideration into the comic book supplies that you will need.
Materials and supplier source will become important variables in your
overall decisions. I will have more interesting topics and sources from
time to time at my site, so come on over and visit. You may even want
to bookmark it.
Dave Gieber, a former
rocket engineer, has decided to take up residency on the Internet. He
is the owner and editor of several websites, one of which was built
around one of his childhood passions; http://www.comic-book-collection-made-easy.com.
You can visit here to keep up to date on the world of
and comic book collecting. Feel free to sign up
for his comic book ezine at http://www.comic-book-collection-made-easy.com/comic-book-ezine.html
|
comic book supplies Navigation
Article / Links
Comic Book Effect In
Photoshop
Comic Book Supplies
Comic Book Industry
More Resources
Article / Links
Article / Links
|