Hi! This is John from Beyond Comics here in Maryland. We are Maryland's largest comic bookstore. And I wanted to show you how to start a comic book collection. Now that I have shown you the ways that are proper to collect your comics and keep them in good condition, I want to show you ways that are not good to keep your comics in good condition.
First off, I recommend highly you don't use a filing cabinet. Most people stick it in hanging drawers, and it tends to have the comic book sag and roll off a spine happens more often then not. This is how I did my first collection, I am kind of sorry.
Stacking in a box, most of our collections come in the door stacked this way and they tend to cause lots of spine roll susceptible to bending on the corners and the comic slide around in the box, it's not very good idea. Notebooks, people like to keep them in notebooks in plastic sheets. What happens though is either you lay it on this side. Hence, again susceptible to spine roll or vertically where the comics tend to sag in the sheets, and you get a curl in the bottom of the book. They can be pressed out occasionally, but if they are set too long, that curl could be permanent.
Acid content in brown paper bags is higher than in any of the storage materials or even in the comic book, and tend to create a gas inside and browns your comics faster. Don't wrap your comics in saran wrap. We get this a lot and it is not a good idea, high acid content in the bag and they are not a good way to store anything. Baggies, same problem.
Normal cardboard, higher acid content in the board will cause your comic to yellow faster and you want to really stick to the acid free boards that we recommend. Don't tape the back of your comic shut with duct tape. The tape will turn into goo over a couple of years and tends not to be recommended because it's going to destroy the bag and also has a high acid content. Same with masking tape, they tend to age faster and age poorly and usually damage anything they are sitting next to.
Don't stick the board inside your comic book, you are going to create a crease and often damage it inside of the comic. Don't stick paper inside your comic book because more than likely the paper has got acid in it and it's going to yellow your pages faster. We don't recommend you use plastic bins to stack your comics in, same problem with boxes, you are going to damage the comics. Dress or drawers same issues, roll the spine, you are going to have them flap around.
There are places we recommend you store your comics, and places where we recommend don't store your comics. Store them where you would live, you want a reasonable temperature, and a reasonable humidity, not too dry, not too humid. Places you should never store them include dirt basements and damp basements because the humidity will cause mildew on the comics, even if you have them stored in the bag. Don't put them in your attic. In the summer it gets too hot, and you'll end up getting your comics yellowing and they will get brittle. Don't store them in the shed or a garage because again your elements are more accessible, so you are going to have humidity problems, leakage problems and bug problems.
So definitely stay away from those. Closets and dry basements are some of the best places to store your comics. I hope this has helped you to learn a little bit about how to collect your comics, and how to start comic book collection and for those of you who have been doing this for while, I hope this simply just reinforces how you can keep your collection in better condition.
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