That time a collector at a con told me my bag-and-board method was ruining my comics

He said using standard bags with the flap inside was creating pressure marks on the covers, so I switched to resealable bags with no flap and started backing every book with a full-size board, and has anyone else gotten weird storage advice from a random stranger at a show that actually ended up being right?

2 comments

2 Comments

anderson.gavin26d ago

Oh man, that flap thing is REAL. I used to think it didn't matter until I noticed these faint line marks running down all my favorite covers. Switched to the resealable bags and it made a HUGE difference for my older books especially. I still use standard bags for stuff I just read once, but anything with any value at all gets the no-flap treatment now. That random con stranger probably saved you a lot of grief down the road.

patricia63426d ago

Funny enough, @anderson.gavin, it’s not just the flap lines that get you. Those standard bags also trap humidity way worse than the resealable ones, especially in a damp basement or garage. I learned that the hard way when I pulled out a bagged paperback and found the cover had started to ripple along the edges. The resealable bags breathe just a little better while still keeping dust out, so they’re worth it for anything you plan to keep more than a year. Even for cheap books, if you’re stacking them tight on a shelf, the flaps can press grooves down the spine too, not just the cover. That con stranger might have been a bit pushy, but they were right on the money.