Deep Storage for your Tfs? (chemicals question)
Freds Workshop
a starwars collector regarding his storage methods for figures...breathing
was involved), I came across a few notes I took regarding issues you can
have with how you keep your tfs:
1) flourescent light damages them.
(seen them yellow when displayed under one for a few years...even when the
light is six feet away)
2) sunlight damages them.
(we've all seen this happen to that jetfire left outside)
3) contact with other plactics...ie, their bubbles, damages them.
(elvin pena's clear prime is a fine example of the yellowing from this
process)
I've always stored my fav tfs in a dark, climate-controlled room, sitting in
small wooden and plastic drawers. Always handled them with latex gloves. A
single incandescent light provided the only illumination. In later years,
I've made it a habit to store my some of my tfs in ziplock freezer bags
along with their instrucs and accs...and placing them all ina rubbermaid
tote.
However, noting #3 above, it occurs to me that even a ziplock bag touching
my tfs is probably not a good idea. To say noting of their inability to
breathe in a rubbermaid tote/ziplock bag. Should I switch to
archival-quality plastic, such as the type used on my old comics (and old
tfs)? Should I go back to the wooden drawer or plastic drawer system?
Thoughts?
Fred. Just when you thought it was safe to seal your ziplock baggies.....
Zobovor
wrote:
> 1) flourescent light damages them.
True.
> 2) sunlight damages them.
Very true. (And not just on white plastic, but all colors of
plastic. Styrene is affected more than vinyl. Sunlight not only
discolors the plastic, but actually breaks down the molecular bonds
and makes the plastic brittle.
> 3) contact with other plactics...ie, their bubbles, damages them.
This is the first I've heard of this. Wouldn't it follow that *all*
carded toys of a certain age would be damaged if this were true, since
they're all sitting inside a plastic tray inside the packaging? What
kind of damage to the plastic have you observed?
> I've always stored my fav tfs in a dark, climate-controlled room, sitting in
> small wooden and plastic drawers. Always handled them with latex gloves.
That would drive me crazy. I'm sure I'll regret it in 20 years when
all my toys start crumbling at the slightest touch, but in the
meantime, I'm sticking with cardboard boxes with Hasbro logos on them.
> However, noting #3 above, it occurs to me that even a ziplock bag touching
> my tfs is probably not a good idea. To say nothing of their inability to
> breathe in a rubbermaid tote/ziplock bag.
I'm uncertain of the reason toys would need to "breathe" while in long-
term storage. I'm not a physicist, but wouldn't the exchange of
particles in the air contribute to entropy; i.e., oxidation of the
screws and metal pins, chemical breakdown of the plastics, etc.?
Zob
FortMax
None of the TFs I bought new have yellowed, but that's partially
because my oldest that could have noteiceable yellowing is from RID. I
have some BW figures and a G2 Prime, but none of those are colors you
could norice any yellowing from. The pink Zord from my Mega Voyager
had noticable yellowing, but that is likely due to me keeping it
across from my bedroom window. The orange on my Classics Megatron has
faded some despite being kept out of sunlight.
Anyway, the yay my room is set up keeps my TFs out of the sun. I have
2 6-foot bookcases (the cheap kind you can find at Walmart) on either
side of my bedroom window which have my G1, BW and Classics figures
(as well as Superion and Bruticus Maximus). I have two stacks of three
sterylite drawers under my window, and have my RID and UT toys there,
along with other odds and ends.
I keep my loose accessories (except for extra missiles from reissues
which stay on their tree and in the box) in zip-lock bags I munched
holes in with a thumbtack. I keep the bags in one of those suitcases
that have Prime's boxart in.
What packaging I do keep (usually the repackagable ones, Classics,
Beast Wars, and the boxes for Superion, Thunder Clash and Rotorstorm.
The boxes go on the top of my bookcases and in the two-foot cubby
between a bookcase and the wall.
I'm careful with my TFs, but I also transform and *gasp* play with
them a lot. I am impaitently waiting for the Sky Lynx reissue to come
out so he and Trypticon can have a race.
Gabi "T.M." D'Galvatron
wrote:
> 3) contact with other plactics...ie, their bubbles, damages them.
> (elvin pena's clear prime is a fine example of the yellowing from this
> process)
I keep my Takara Clear Screamer in it's box w/its plastic trays (all
in a cupboard) , and admittedly have noticed some mild yellowing of
the clear plastic . :-/
It never occurred to me that it was because of the contact with it's
plastic trays -- but now you've made me wonder if I should remove the
toy from it's packaging .
I guess that it may depend on the type / quality of the clear plastic
used .
I have my clear Screamer Palisades statue in a display case for over a
year , and it has no noticeable yellowing as of yet .
> I've always stored my fav tfs in a dark, climate-controlled room, sitting in
> small wooden and plastic drawers. Always handled them with latex gloves.
A few months ago I finally reached the point where I could no longer
store all my TF\s on closet shelves , so I got a few plastic tubs w/
lids , places some TF's in them with layers of bubble wrap in between
them .
I too have heard that zero air circulation is bad for plastic toys ,
so I intend to drill several small holes into the tubs for a small
amount of air circulation .
---
Zobovor wrote :
> I'm uncertain of the reason toys would need to "breathe" while in long-
> term storage. I'm not a physicist, but wouldn't the exchange of
> particles in the air contribute to entropy; i.e., oxidation of the
> screws and metal pins, chemical breakdown of the plastics, etc.?
It may have to do with heat and humidity (among other things) .
Heat may not effect a toy as much as the plastic bag a toys is stored
in .
Heat may contort or expand a ziplock bag , and the humidity may effect
stickers or paint in a sealed ziplock bag , thus perhaps the need to
let the toys "breathe" and refresh the airflow around the toy (even a
little) .
Keep in mind that not every collector stores their toys in a climate-
controlled room (like Fred for example) , and some of us live in hot
and humid places which cloud affect our stored collections .
Fans can only share their own experiences , but those experiences
cannot apply to all fans equally , as it involves the location and the
weather conditions under we each live .
I think that asking a plastics engineer about this topic would be a
good start ... , but even then one would have to know what type of
plastics & paints are used in each generation of TF's -- as I'm sure
those have varied from decade to decade .
My 2 cents .
necrotron
"Freds Workshop" <fredsw...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:7nUrj.7605$iB4....@newsfe07.lga...
> However, noting #3 above, it occurs to me that even a ziplock bag touching
> my tfs is probably not a good idea. To say noting of their inability to
> breathe in a rubbermaid tote/ziplock bag. Should I switch to
> archival-quality plastic, such as the type used on my old comics (and old
> tfs)? Should I go back to the wooden drawer or plastic drawer system?
>
> Thoughts?
ziplocks = bad
While working on a project a few years back I discovered that all of my
beast era stuff that was encased in ziplocks had yellowed substantially,
ruining hundreds of units. Also, I had a G1 Red Alert that was downgraded
to Yellow Alert with a touch of Brown Alert (and I'm not really sure what
that means... but I bet it's not pretty.)
I also was looking at the missiles for my OmegaPrime/God
Magnus/whateverthehell they call it clear sparkly giftset recently, which I
had foolishly left in the plastic tray. They are discolored on any part
which was touching the packaging. Those parts are basically irreplacable,
but I wonder how all the sealed ones have fared... badly I suspect.
I switched to a combination of nothing for lesser units and non-show guys
and archival mylite/mylar comic bags for the transmetals and anything worth
decent $$ (which was not very many, which is good because mylars are
expensive.) I also pack my extra G1 units loosely but carefully, with the
accessories dumped in a spare prime trailer or two. Yeah, there will be
paint chipping here and there, but I'm pretty careful, and these guys were
not mint anyway.
You need pvc-free plastic materials to store a toy for any long period.
Since the plastic used on the bubbles and inner packaging the toys came in
is *NOT* pvc free, eventually those units left sealed will deteriorate,
which is yet another good reason to collect loose units. I'm sure you've
all seen the pictures of nice minty units that are horribly yellowed on the
bubble. This is the fate of all sealed toys. It's only a matter of time.
Climate and storage precautions will help stave off the eventuality... but
never stop it.
Joe
Freds Workshop
Hmmm. Well, I can either re-wrap all these toys (I presume that in-addition
to removing the ziplock bags, I would need to replace the rubbermaid totes
with cardboard boxes?) *or* I could.... well, what other way can I store
them? On my wooden shelf, I put down a piece of typing paper. On my
fake-wood shelf, I figure it doesn't matter, as it's a veneer (I still put
down a piece of typing paper).
I like to keep the accs with the toy, so tossing them loose into a cardboard
box won't work for me :-) For that matter, wouldn't all those toys touching
each other cause a similar problem as the ziplocks?
I do rotate some of the toys, but I have several G1 mold variations I keep
in 'deep storage' (ie, I don't look at them unless I need to answer a
question on the toy....no sense displaying more than one Mirage). So they
sit for better than a year at a time before I unwrap them again.
Fred. Needs to make a trip to the comic shop for mylar/pvc free comic bags.
Do they come in x-tra large?
"necrotron" <necr...@biteme.spambot.com> wrote in message
news:BuidnTsKop_MWSza...@comcast.com...
Zobovor
> You need pvc-free plastic materials to store a toy for any long period.
> Since the plastic used on the bubbles and inner packaging the toys came in
> is *NOT* pvc free, eventually those units left sealed will deteriorate,
> which is yet another good reason to collect loose units. I'm sure you've
> all seen the pictures of nice minty units that are horribly yellowed on the
> bubble. This is the fate of all sealed toys.
Wait, waitwaitwait. Come to think of it, I actually *have* seen an
example of this happening. I finally decided to bust open my carded
Star Wars Episode I version of R2-D2 because I needed it for a
project, and I was surprised to discover that the little flip-open
panels on his body had turned yellow. I figured they'd just used a
bad batch of glue to assemble him or something, but in light of this
recent discussion I wonder if it had to do with being in the packaging
for so long. (And that toy has only been in storage for eight or nine
years.)
Crap. I'm going to seriously have to reevaluate what I'm going to do
with all my packaged toys. I may have to either start liberating them
or selling them off before they all disintegrate.
Zob
Blaster Master
:-)
--
Blaster Master
a.k.a.
Brad S. Russell
"Zobovor" <zm...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:229d2778-9381-4b76...@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
necrotron
"Zobovor" <zm...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:229d2778-9381-4b76...@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> You need pvc-free plastic materials to store a toy for any long period.
> Since the plastic used on the bubbles and inner packaging the toys came in
> is *NOT* pvc free, eventually those units left sealed will deteriorate,
> which is yet another good reason to collect loose units. I'm sure you've
> all seen the pictures of nice minty units that are horribly yellowed on
the
> bubble. This is the fate of all sealed toys.
Wait, waitwaitwait. Come to think of it, I actually *have* seen an
example of this happening. I finally decided to bust open my carded
Star Wars Episode I version of R2-D2 because I needed it for a
project, and I was surprised to discover that the little flip-open
panels on his body had turned yellow. I figured they'd just used a
bad batch of glue to assemble him or something, but in light of this
recent discussion I wonder if it had to do with being in the packaging
for so long. (And that toy has only been in storage for eight or nine
years.)
It gets better, Zob. The toys themselves are also not PVC free. Google
MEGO toys for some great examples of toys literaly eating themselves up due
to the chemicals used to create them.
Vintage GiJoes (60's, not 80's) also get "pinhead" syndrome, where the head
shrinks due to being different plastic than the body.
Granted, that's 40 years... but G1 Transformers are halfway there.
In the case of your R2, it was likely the softer plastic used on those
panels that felt the effects first. Did the toy itself or the packaging
cause it? Who knows... but it puts the MISB collector into a more rarified
and even more tenuous market.
My *beautiful* MISB Pepsi Prime's box was all wrinkled up when it took it
out to inspect it a few years back thanks to some unknown humidity issues at
my apartment. It just about killed me. I still didn't open it, but I know
that the Styro will also eventually eat the toy... so it has to come out
sometime.
Joe
Necrotron
Onslaught Six
> > 1) flourescent light damages them.
>
> True.
Random question--I used to have a pretty spiffy glitter light in my
room that basically illuminated a regular bulb up through some
coloured water. (Think a lava lamp.) Is this actually flourescent
light, or not? I stopped using it after I got worried it'd damage some
of the local TFs, but I'm curious.
> Very true. (And not just on white plastic, but all colors of
> plastic. Styrene is affected more than vinyl. Sunlight not only
> discolors the plastic, but actually breaks down the molecular bonds
> and makes the plastic brittle.
I've seen red yellow pretty noticably--it gets to this really nasty
orangey-red shade.
Interestingly, it took over a year of sitting by a window that was
generally uncovered, in almost direct sunlight, for the back of my
original Megazord to even start showing signs of yellowing. Once I
noticed, I moved him, but.
> This is the first I've heard of this. Wouldn't it follow that *all*
> carded toys of a certain age would be damaged if this were true, since
> they're all sitting inside a plastic tray inside the packaging? What
> kind of damage to the plastic have you observed?
Indeed, I'd like to hear more about this too.
Incidentally, most 80s carded GI Joe figures won't have anything to
worry about, as they were just thrown into the empty bubble with no
real packing. Of course, by now the collectors have to worry about the
glue coming loose and such...
> That would drive me crazy. I'm sure I'll regret it in 20 years when
> all my toys start crumbling at the slightest touch, but in the
> meantime, I'm sticking with cardboard boxes with Hasbro logos on them.
Agreed muchly.
> I'm uncertain of the reason toys would need to "breathe" while in long-
> term storage. I'm not a physicist, but wouldn't the exchange of
> particles in the air contribute to entropy; i.e., oxidation of the
> screws and metal pins, chemical breakdown of the plastics, etc.?
That actually makes a fair bit of sense. Stuff in a sealed environment
doesn't get problems like that. I've had my original Ultra Primal in
an empty TFU Primal box since...I got TFU Primal, and he hasn't got a
speck of dust on him.
G.B. Blackrock
> On Feb 11, 9:59 am, Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > 1) flourescent light damages them.
>
> > True.
>
> Random question--I used to have a pretty spiffy glitter light in my
> room that basically illuminated a regular bulb up through some
> coloured water. (Think a lava lamp.) Is this actually flourescent
> light, or not? I stopped using it after I got worried it'd damage some
> of the local TFs, but I'm curious.
Unless I'm missing some key part of your description, no, this isn't a
flourescent light. Just an incandescent one being seen through
liquid. Flourescent light comes from running an electrical current
through a gas. Entirely different principle (one that no doubt
someone can correct/expand upon the extremely rough definition I've
just given).
Unrelated to the above, but on the topic of this thread.
I've been annoyed at how my Action Master weapons have discolored.
The easiest example is Grimlocks tank/cannon. The orange trigger
faded years ago. Oddly enough, this isn't true of the rest of the
orange plastic. Just the trigger. Other Action Masters weapons that
use this orange plastic have similar issues: certain whole plastic
pieces are faded, but others aren't, even if they appear to be the
same color to start with.
My two cents,
G.B. Blackrock
Punch/Counterpunch
says...
> Going thru some research material recently (after having a conversation with
> a starwars collector regarding his storage methods for figures...breathing
> was involved), I came across a few notes I took regarding issues you can
> have with how you keep your tfs:
>
> 1) flourescent light damages them.
> (seen them yellow when displayed under one for a few years...even when the
> light is six feet away)
haven't noticed any yellowing of my TFs...probabaly because I do not
keep the light on 24/7
I will have to keep a close eye on them (and move them further away from
the light!)
>
> 2) sunlight damages them.
> (we've all seen this happen to that jetfire left outside)
Oh...this is SO true. Most of my G1 toys got played with outside when I
was younger, and as a result have turned a shade of yellow.
>
> 3) contact with other plactics...ie, their bubbles, damages them.
> (elvin pena's clear prime is a fine example of the yellowing from this
> process)
Regarding #3, Yes, contact with other plastics can cause plastic to
yellow, but more often than not, this yellowing starts with the bubble
or packaging. If you notice the packaging starting to yellow, take the
toy out of the package! The value of the toy will drop further in the
package than out of the package at that point.
I've also read about Ziploc bags going bad after awhile, and a lot of my
weapons/etc. are in Ziploc bags. I tend to keep a close eye on those.
>
> I've always stored my fav tfs in a dark, climate-controlled room, sitting in
> small wooden and plastic drawers. Always handled them with latex gloves. A
> single incandescent light provided the only illumination. In later years,
> I've made it a habit to store my some of my tfs in ziplock freezer bags
> along with their instrucs and accs...and placing them all ina rubbermaid
> tote.
I've always wanted a climate controlled area to store my TFs...I think
that is the best way to store them.
>
>
> However, noting #3 above, it occurs to me that even a ziplock bag touching
> my tfs is probably not a good idea. To say noting of their inability to
> breathe in a rubbermaid tote/ziplock bag. Should I switch to
> archival-quality plastic, such as the type used on my old comics (and old
> tfs)? Should I go back to the wooden drawer or plastic drawer system?
The toys themselves don't need to "breathe", but the Ziploc bags need to
breathe, else they will start to turn yellow and damage the toys inside.
-Punch/counterpunch
Chad Rushing
Father Time destroys it all anyway. It is so ironic that keeping a TF
MISB or MOSC might actually make it deteriorate even faster than if it
was loose! I guess the speculative market has been wrong all this
time ...
As for me, I have been storing all my loose figures in plastic bags
(maybe not Ziploc brand exactly) in clear plastic bins in my closets.
I leave the doors cracked so that the closets do not get too hot or
too cold at any given time; I guess you could consider it climate-
controlled then. I have only been doing that for a few years now, so
I have not noticed any significant yellowing or whatnot to any figures
yet.
As for the plastic-on-plastic issue, I had a bunch of plastic toys
stored together for years at my parents' house, and when I finally got
them down, it was bizarre to see the melting patterns on some of
them. Some plastic items had actually melted into other ones like
they were hot butter, and I had to do my best to pry them apart. It
seemed to have a lot to do with how hard or soft the plastic involved
naturally was. I ended up throwing away a lot of old (1970's) toys,
because they were too melted or discolored to be worth anything on the
secondary market.
As for my vintage Star Wars figures, they seem to have held up pretty
well over the years, being stored in individual plastic bags. I
noticed that the paint apps have gotten sticky on some of them despite
them being climate-controlled, and I think that the white plastic on
some of them (R2) has yellowed noticeably, too. Surprisingly enough,
the plastic on my vintage SW playsets and ships (before I sold them)
did not seem to have degraded at all over the years despite being
stored in a hot attic for like 15 years; that brittle plastic must be
more resilient than the softer plastics used for the figures.
I guess the moral of the story is that our toys were really never
meant to last forever, so we should not expect them to. Perhaps, we
could seal them in glass cases filled with inert gases, but what would
be the fun of that? I suppose that is what we get for considering our
toys as long-term investments (either for pleasure or money) rather
than taking a more accurate, transient view of them ... here today,
gone tomorrow.
I was always one to keep ALL of my toys growing up, but I think that
my sister-in-law has the right idea these days. As soon as my nephew
loses interest in one of his toys, she immediately gives it away.
Sure, he is probably too young to care right now, but I am hoping that
she will be able to counteract the "eternal collector" influence that
his father and I will likely have on him when he is older. Buy it,
play the crap out of it, and then get rid of it.
- Chad
who has been out sick for a while
Thunder Magnificent!
> - Chad
> who has been out sick for a while
Wondering where you've been. Hope you get well soon. :)
t.k.
crazysteve
> Reading this thread makes me want to part with everything before
> Father Time destroys it all anyway.
I'm glad my toys will decay and die along with my meat body. I don't
want the only enduring mark I made on this world to be an
indestructible time capsule shrine of hermetically sealed toy robot
Volkswagens.
> who has been out sick for a while
That sucks!
Chad Rushing
Thanks for the well wishes! I was really darn sick and ended up
having to go to the emergency room on Monday. Fortunately, the worst
of it is behind me, so I should be back to my clever and spry self
again within another week.
- Chad
Zobovor
wrote:
> I'm glad my toys will decay and die along with my meat body.
The fillings in my teeth will outlive you all.
Zob
Zobovor
> Thanks for the well wishes! I was really darn sick and ended up
> having to go to the emergency room on Monday. Fortunately, the
> worst of it is behind me, so I should be back to my clever and spry
> self again within another week.
Glad to hear you're feeling better, Chad.
Zob
Zobovor
> It gets better, Zob. The toys themselves are also not PVC free. Google
> MEGO toys for some great examples of toys literaly eating themselves up due
> to the chemicals used to create them.
I wonder if this is the true cause of the Monster Pretenders turning
all gummy and nasty. (I don't own any of those toys, but I've heard
the usual horror stories.)
> My *beautiful* MISB Pepsi Prime's box was all wrinkled up when it took it
> out to inspect it a few years back thanks to some unknown humidity issues at
> my apartment. It just about killed me. I still didn't open it, but I know
> that the Styro will also eventually eat the toy... so it has to come out
> sometime.
This really is a tragic state of affairs. I was completely unaware of
this problem until this discussion. I was waiting until an
unspecified date to begin selling off all my packaged toys, but
perhaps I need to look into this sooner rather than later. (Most of
them are duplicates of toys I already own loose, so it wouldn't really
make sense for me to open them.)
I was so proud of my carded April O'Neil collection, too. Now the
stupid bimbo is just a ticking time bomb. Sigh.
Zob
ShadowWing
"Chad Rushing" wrote
>
> Surprisingly enough,
> the plastic on my vintage SW playsets and ships (before I sold them)
> did not seem to have degraded at all over the years despite being
> stored in a hot attic for like 15 years; that brittle plastic must be
> more resilient than the softer plastics used for the figures.
The plastic, maybe. A few years ago I took my toys out of the cardboard
boxes that were falling apart and put them into plastic totes. My Dagobah
playset had been in it's original box (I didn't want to lose pieces like I
did the Millenium Falcon) inside of the bigger box. (These were kept in the
basement.) While the rest of the playset was fine, the sponge-like material
used for the swamp (which was only big enough to suck in an action figure,
not my X-Wing) had liquified.
> I guess the moral of the story is that our toys were really never
> meant to last forever, so we should not expect them to. Perhaps, we
> could seal them in glass cases filled with inert gases, but what would
> be the fun of that? I suppose that is what we get for considering our
> toys as long-term investments (either for pleasure or money) rather
> than taking a more accurate, transient view of them ... here today,
> gone tomorrow.
I'm just a pack rat, myself. :)
> I was always one to keep ALL of my toys growing up, but I think that
> my sister-in-law has the right idea these days. As soon as my nephew
> loses interest in one of his toys, she immediately gives it away.
> Sure, he is probably too young to care right now, but I am hoping that
> she will be able to counteract the "eternal collector" influence that
> his father and I will likely have on him when he is older. Buy it,
> play the crap out of it, and then get rid of it.
If I don't get my own place soon, I'm going to have to think about those
non-Transformer toys I have packed up. As it is I'm going through my comics,
Transformers, and novels trying to clean out the collections a bit.
Chad Rushing
wrote:
>
> If I don't get my own place soon, I'm going to have to think about those
> non-Transformer toys I have packed up. As it is I'm going through my comics,
> Transformers, and novels trying to clean out the collections a bit.
Perhaps, we should come up with some rule that says, "If you are using
more than X sq ft of floor space or Y percentage of your living space
for collectibles (toys, comics, etc.), then you have too much stuff."
I am finding that life is too short and too busy to be hauling this
collectible junk (most of which I never have time to look at) around
every time I move. You get to a point where your possessions own you
rather than the other way around.
- Chad