Hi all!
I’m sure this has been asked a few times but want to get a idea of what works.
What is the best way to store a singular expensive card?
Any ideas?
My ideal method is:
-card in a penny sleeve, inside a card saver. Both from a reputable brand and made of acid-free materials. Be careful to avoid debris or dust inside the plastic that can leave impressions. (you can avoid this part if it’s already graded)
-Put the protected card in a team bag not too sealed and then cardboard box, filled with silica gel packs. Do not keep it in a sealed environment, let it breathe.
Do not expose frequently to light and UV. Do not expose to solvent vapors/oily chemical/garage stuff/deep frying
-keep humidity between 40-60% without big and rapid changes. Temperature below 27°C if you can
If you want to keep a card in a binder:
-some people double sleeve them, but I prefer a single ultraPro deck protector.
-put the card in a side-loading reputable brand, zipped (with a reasonable amount of pages) binder
-flip the pages gently and avoid excessive handling
-keep the binder vertically if you can, and in the same box/environment explained above
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Bank vault 
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Inside a graded slab and outside of sunlight.
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Graded or not?
For raw i use: Sleeve + toploader + team bag + airtight plastic box. I store the box in a dark place without moisture and high temperature.
Graded: PSA slab bags + plastic box
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Personally most of my expensive cards are graded, so beyond that I put them in a case and within the case I store Silica packets to keep out moisture. I never really cared about the moisture until I noticed one of my cards started to look wavy.
So now I take moisture and humidity seriously and try to protect against it the best I can.
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The most secure form of TCG storage is vaults. They have 24/7 security, constant humidity and temperature, no exposure to ionizing light, it’s insured, etc. The tradeoff is that you can’t see your card in person.
If your card is graded, it’s protected from physical damage, but it still needs to be kept away from ionizing light and large fluctuations in humidity and heat.
For my cards that aren’t graded, I use side-loading VaultX binders with Dragon Shield sleeves. This will inherently prevent against binder dings from O-ring (and occasionally D-ring) binders.
I keep the humidity and temperature as consistent and reasonable as I can. I flip through the pages very carefully, as if I’m handling archival documents. This prevents the pages from clouding (micro-scratching) over time.
I don’t stack binders on top of each other, as this could lead to compression damage. Instead, I sit them upright like a book in a library or on their long edge with the spine facing the ceiling.
Please don’t use one-touch cases. The likelihood that you accidentally damage your card is shockingly high.
Hope this helped!
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Something I often see conflicting advice about (even in this short thread) is whether to keep items in airtight vs non-airtight containers?
I understood non-airtight is better, so the cards can “breathe”? If there’s high humidity when you close your cards in an airtight container, they will be the thing that absorbs any moisture?
The second paragraph are just ramblings. I’d love to hear anyone’s factual thoughts!
Airtight “feels” good because it the idea of keeping moisture out of the container feels intuitive. But you are also keeping moisture inside the container. If you can manage the humidity inside the container - like a wine fridge or a cigar box - then keeping the container mostly airtight shouldn’t be a problem. There are a lot of people though who just throw in a few silica packs and call it a day. These are not effective because they get saturated with water very quickly and become useless. The reason they are used in products you buy is because the product is not expected to be opened until you buy it. So if you seal something off indefinitely and never open it, that’s the use case for non-rechargable silica packs.
So all that said, unless you’re doing something effective to manage humidity, airtight is a bad idea. Especially if you are storing things in a climate of variable humidity and temperature. The worst case scenario is having hot+humid air, sealing it in your box, then having the temperature drop. The air inside can’t hold all the water at a lower temperature and the condensation has to form somewhere.
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The rationale behind the “non-airtight” for me is that
-there are a couple of extremely unpleasant experiences from e4 members that tried storing cards in a fireproof safe o similar boxes: what it could happen is that wet hot air is trapped inside and can quickly condense in the winter, warping all the cards (even the graded ones)
-I saw an interview with a museum employee who explained how to properly store comics and manga: their thesis was that the paper/inks release volatile compounds and acid with time, and being trapped they can discolor or change the cellulose properties. How and if this translates on TCG cardboard isn’t proven, but I would avoid it.
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Here are my thoughts on safes and safe deposit boxes:
Safe deposit boxes (i.e., note that they are not called “safety” deposit boxes by any banks in the U.S.) are not the way to go. Many banks do not run A/C regularly in their safe deposit box areas outside of their working hours and most have a dollar limit on what can be stored there. If you look on the old sports forums, you can see decades worth of horror stories: mixups, flooding, humidity issues, $10,000 insurance caps, etc.
Similarly, home safes can cause humidity issues and don’t adequately protect against fire. Most commercially available safes are UL Class 350, meaning that their job is to keep the internal temperature of the safe below 350°F (175°C). However, the cheapest safes will only do so for 30 minutes at most and the best ones available will only do so for roughly 2 hours. House fires burn at 1,110°F (593°C) on average and can engulf an entire residence in less than 10 minutes, so any delay in firefighting will fry your cards.
If you think 350°F is OK for an hour or two given that paper burns at 451°F and cardboard burns at 427°F, you need to consider the melting point of plastics (i.e., cards sleeves and cases used for grading). Unfortunately, most plastics melt far below 350°F. So even if the safe is doing the right thing by protecting your valuables at ≤350°F for 30-120 minutes, your cards will have been damaged/fused with the plastic that protects them for some time. Also, none of this takes into account the potential for smoke damage and the issues that safes can have with regulating humidity.
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Buried in the ground, with Fluffy the 3 headed dog sat ontop of it.
In all seriousness, I live in a hot environment that gets quite humid from time to time.
The enemy of paper is constantly fluctuating humidity.
You ideally need to keep humidity stable and as close to 50% as much as possible.
For me, the best thing to use are
Graded slab > storage box (I use Coda now but before I used shock/weather proof ones) that are mostly air tight > with silica sachets inside that you rotate once per month > open said box once per week
For security - I won’t go too much detail on his but the best you can have is a floor bolted safe in a discreet area of your property that isn’t subject to big changes in temperature. Also do not give people you don’t know your shipping address where your cards are located.
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I’m glad you rotate them 
For anyone interested in silica as a humidity mitigation, you can also get rechargeable ones. They change colour when they are saturated and you can release the water by putting it in the microwave/oven
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Similar to what PFM just mentioned about rechargeable ones…I use these. Just so you know, it takes around 1-2 hours to take out the moisture when put on the heating base. Very easy to tell when its saturated.
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That’s really convenient!
I’ve been using these for about a year now and they are really effective. I like to combine them with this small thermometer/humidity gauge: Amazon.com
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Agreed…I love mine. Very easy to use and its really not that much of a pain to keep a good rotation
Oh nice with the thermometer/humidity gauge…whats your ideal range that you aim for if you dont mind me asking
I try to keep the temperature between 69-71 degrees fahrenheit and the humidity between 45% - 55%. Once the humidity gauge reads 53% or so I’ll recharge the silica device.
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I use dehumidifiers like this. 10/10 would recommend!
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I just bought this, thanks!
How long is it effective for?