Long time collector, and admittedly now a tad down after I found out something this morning. Any assistance would be helpful!
I store most of my set PSA cards (read most non-holos, and a few holos) in a First Alert safe, model 2087DF. Ventilated like the instructions mention, every week.
Getting to the point, to my horror this morning I find around 70-75% of the non-holo cards have now “waved” inside the PSA case, on some of the bad ones almost appearing bent. It is much more noticeable on the back. A few photos below.
To my surprise, the holos inside have not been affected, but sadly a fair number of my non-holo (set) cards are like this.
My initial guess is the safe itself, and the moisture levels/humidity inside are incorrect and warping the cards. Funnily enough it is in an area of the safe is cool, dark and dry. Since the non-holo cards are such a thickness (vs the holo cards which are thicker/heavier), this would make sense as to why it is only them. I fear the damage has already been done though.
We should have some kind of resource here as to how to properly store these things to prevent this sort of thing from happening. I’m sure most of the community has no idea. My condolences.
Wow, i never knew this could happen… I was always under the impression that PSA cases were reasonably waterproof. I lived in a pretty tropical place with 100% humidity as a kid and this never happened to my cards. The holos did gets quite curly, though.
It looks like moisture is being drawn into the PSA case (perhaps by the cardstock), and then being trapped/unable to escape.
If this becomes a bit of a resource for other collectors, I guess it has helped in that regard.
Upon closer inspection of the affected non-holo cards, that 95% of them have bent like the photo above. Seems that they bend from the centre of the card, and upward if you are looking at it from the front.
Naturally disappointing, but I am also at a stump weather the cards hold any value like this. My guess is that they would, but at a reduced rate of course.
My blessing is that I have caught this now, and looks like i have spared the notable cards (holos).
@dannyboy27, if your 100 percent determined to find out the cause you could use a humidity meter. I’m pretty sure the moisture in the air was trapped in your safe since your safe is probably airtight or close to it and the moisture had no where to go but be absorbed by the cards which warped them. This happened to me with 2 cards once but they didn’t end up as damaged as yours since I removed them from the safe before further damage. I tried multiple silica packs the cheap ones are less effective and are going to cost you more than the slightly more expensive ones. If you use silica packs don’t buy the ones from china I tried them they suck. Buy American brand since they have way higher standards. Point is it’s easy to control the humidity in an airtight safe. Just use humidity meter, play around with silica packs, and research appropriate humidity levels.
