3 Can’t-Miss Tips For Sports Memorabilia Preservation
Have some ultra-rare or highly valued — fiscally or sentimentally — sports memorabilia that you want to keep in mint condition?
That’s excellent, as sports memorabilia preservation is a wonderful pastime that will keep the collector pieces and mementos you cherish for years, if not decades to come.
But you need to do better than simply putting it in a safe place in the closet.
There are a number of things working against you, as preservation is a battle against time, fate and the elements, even in a controlled environment indoors. However, you’ll have a much easier time of it with these 3 killer sports memorabilia preservation tips.
Keep It Airtight And It Will Be Alright
Storage has to be airtight. If you could vacuum seal it, so much the better.
One of the first things you need to know about sports memorabilia preservation is that oxygen is the enemy. You need it to live, to be sure, and it’s one of the most abundant elements of the universe. But as far as the person wanting to keep something in a preserved state is concerned?
For such a person, oxygen is the devil himself.
Oxygen molecules permeate the atomic bonds of many substances, causing chemical reactions and breaking the substance down. This is how food rots. This is how metal rusts. It’s called oxidation, and it will rot your memorabilia as surely as it turns your bananas black, no matter how much more you get gouged for the organic ones.
Paper will go to dust. Cloth dries, colors fade, wood dries and so on.
Therefore, take pains to keep oxygen out. Cards, for instance, need to go in plastic sleeves. You should also make sure that your sports memorabilia displays seal well. Ultimately, if you keep exposure to the air to a minimum, that will go a long way to ensuring your memorabilia will last for years to come.
Paper Needs To Be Protected Against Acidification
The next item to guard against is a chemical process, acidification, and any printed materials are highly susceptible to it. Acidation is the process by which acids in printed materials react with the other chemicals in the material.
Ever see a poster, baseball card or newspaper go brown with age? That’s acidification, and it is a major threat to sports memorabilia preservation with anything printed.
It’s caused by the natural acids in the paper that the ink or paint and so on are printed on, and as time goes by the acid reacts with those inks and paints as well as the paper itself, decaying the material turning it brittle and brown, like a leaf in autumn.
So, how does one fight against this?
By two primary treatments. First is to store any printed materials in an acid-free medium, such as acid-free plastic scrapbook or acid-free cardboard tube.
Second is to apply a neutralization or deacidification treatment, usually a mist or spray that must be applied with great care. However, an occasional treatment — again, with great care — will help protect your collectibles. Make sure to get some coaching from a preservation expert, such as from a museum on this process.
Nota Bene: DO NOT LAMINATE. Lamination will murder the resale value with a rusty knife and leave it to rot in a desert of worthlessness. However, if you intend for the item to never be sold, then you may consider it. If you intend on leaving the item to someone after you’ve gone to the hereafter, make sure they know that the lamination will have killed the resale value.
UV Protection Is Vital As Is Temperature Control
The last major tip in sports memorabilia preservation is that any storage medium must offer UV protection. This can be a memorabilia display — even clear, so it can be viewed — or other storage medium.
Clear displays should be plexiglass, as this offers more UV protection than other polymers and certainly glass. If you are intending on displaying the items in a room that gets sunlight, it’s plexiglass or don’t bother. Glass displays are certainly classy, but MUST be kept well away from sunlight.
Next is temperature and humidity control. Ambient temperature is fine; you can save the humidifier for cigars. However, what you’re looking to avoid is wild swings in temperature and humidity. The garden variety house is fine, the garden variety shed…that may or may not be in the garden…is not.
So long as you keep the temperature controlled, the UV light away, and control for air and acid…your sports memorabilia should last a long time indeed.
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