Free Sample Pack of Mylar Sleeves
 

My name is Rick Hyatt. I am the owner of TCVS a small company in Northern California that produces mylar sleeves for long-term preservation and protection of paper collectibles.

Over the past 5 years I have helped a number collectors switch their collections to mylar storage options from the vinyl pages in binders, penny sleeves in rigid top loaders and even unprotected storage in cardboard count boxes.

I have just finished putting almost my entire collection in mylar enclosures. These are 4 mil mylar sleeves placed in a custom cut flap sealed poly bags for added protection.

If you would like a free sample pack go to tcverify.com and use the contact tab or send me your name and address or email me directly at tcverify@yahoo.com. I will also be happy to answer any questions you might have about how I can help you better protect and preserve your paper collectibles.

What kinds of plastics do grading companies use and how are they bad for our paper collectibles? Do you know what kinds of chemicals go into making these slabs?

I sent in a request yesterday for a sample pack. Never heard back from them.. Just an FYI..

Is there a reason someone giving you something for free would need to get right back to you? Did you have a question(s) about the product?

Not a paid endorsement..But I've known Rick for twenty years and have purchased thousands of Mylar snugs from him over the last few years. This venture produces a high quality product at very competitive prices. Libraries and museums around the world use 4 mil Mylar. In fact, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced last year that their card and paper collection will be housed in Mylar rather than slabs....YES, there is a reason.... If you compare Rick's prices to Gerber or Bill Cole (the two largest Mylar suppliers) you'll find the same, or better pricing. Gerber has a good seam, but still runs 2-3 % defective. Cole has an irregular seam and slightly higher defective rate. I bought from both of them for years and neither offered any return privileges or adjustments for the defective product.... Rick has replaced any damaged product that I have bought from him (under 1%) and his seams are the best. I hope that his venture is successful and continues to recruit collectors to the best longterm method of storage for paper collectibles

Have you(anybody) ever tried one of the "do it yourself" kits? They look like a great alternative to grading if your goal is to protect your cards.

Ben,
I have not tried any of the kits. Over the years I have purchased more than 100,000 mylar snugs (From Bill Cole, Gerber and Rick Hyatt) ..in different sizes..which would require quite a bit of idle time, which I just don't have...One additional factor is that Rick will make custom sizes for me and others. My most recent custom orders are for Centennial Flour / Kahn's and a Cardsaver 3 size for 1955 Topps Doubleheaders, T-201 Meccas and 1965 Topps Football. Both came out very well..... Mark

Same here.

Hi Rick
Just an fyi for next time, but this front page is NOT for selling things. If you don't know what you are doing on the forum you can always message me for help. Good luck with your sales.
thanks
LL

Ricks stuff, including the DIY kits are the best I have found. Currently, with few exceptions (less than 1%), all the cards I sell are packaged in TCVS mylar. Crystal clear and virtually invisible seam.

Hoes does mylar compare to polypropylene in terms of potential impacts on cards?

In the short term, there's not much difference, except that Mylar is a lot nicer. Much more clear, and a bit stiff.

In the long term, for archives and large collections where there might not be an opportunity to change a holder for decades or longer, there isn't really anything better than Mylar.

The only problems I've had with the few mylar sleeves I've used, some now about 30 years old, Are from the way I used them.
The seams were a bit inconsistent, some were a bit thick, so putting them into toploaders was a bit difficult.
And taking them out.... They're so smooth the air got wrung out from between the mylar sleeve and toploader, and from the mylar itself. I had to cut most of those cards out of the toploader. The sleeves were fine.

Bumping this thread because Rick was nice enough to send me one of his "DIY Kits".

The card in the kit is a normal sized modern card. The quality of the kit is top notch. I cut a piece of label to mimic the size of the Avery 8160 Address Labels that are recommended to use.

I think something like this would be a great alternative to grading if your goal is to protect your card(s).

Now the bad. Because of the size it is just too big and ugly for me to use. It is a 4X6 Toploader but the real dimensions are 4 9/16 X 6 1/2. If the size could be changed to 3 3/4 X 5 3/4(min) to 4X6(max) real dimensions I would be very interested in them. I think at that size they would also look very nice.

The SGC slab is 3 1/2 X 5 1/2 for comparison.

Did anybody else get anything, if so what do you think of it?

Ben,

It looks trimmed to me.

Frigging love it!

Just wanted to chime in that I purchased some of the holders and they arrived today. I am pleased with the product and the service. Nicer and better turn times than the two others I'd used before.

The ones I bought 250 of are 1951-52 Bowman sized, which fit nicely into 9 pocket pages with some room to spare at the top and sides but don't have enough room to really flop around. Delivered for $5 flat rate.

This will be my new mylar supplier.

Hi Rick,

I must admit I'm fascinated by the whole "archival" subject as it involves cards, so I will send you an email and take you up on your offer. I've been meaning to try something mylar for probably the better part of 5 years now, but never have gotten around to it.

As for the overall, I know it's been debated in other posts here even on Net54, but my questions around doing something like this wholesale, all-in, say I take the couple hundred "valuable" unslabbed cards in my vintage collection now - most of which reside in standard Ultra-Pro toploaders and penny sleeves - and make the investment of time and materials to get them all into mylar - will naturally come down to whether or not it's really worth it for me to do this? I'm familiar with the proposition of a museum being interested in preserving something for the next several hundred to several thousand years - while if we are being honest, I'm interested mostly in preserving this Roberto Clemente card, and that Johnny Bench card - for er, maybe the next 50 years tops. Longer than that if I get my daughters interested in my card collection and I can then pass them on, but honestly who knows. They are interested in legoes, makeup, and clothes at the moment...

So really - am I going to see any difference in the appearance of my cards under magnification in the next 40-50 years or so, with my nicer (say EX, EX-MT) cards from the 1950's and 60's if I take the time to switch everything to mylar? I'm not even talking about keeping them in their SAME penny sleeves and toploaders for that period of time. I'm a bit more anal than that about my hobby supplies - and being someone who looks at their cards frequently, has been known to change holders due to minor aesthetic issues, flips through stacks of toploaders a lot, even carries / transports cards around at times - I can assure you that I am FAR more likely to change out my entire collection of toploaders and penny sleeves every 5-7 years than I am just to leave a random Mickey Mantle card sitting, collecting dust on my shelf in the closet in the same sleeve and holder for the next 30 years. I like nice looking cards, and nice looking holders. So my question really comes back down to - is it worth it? What if I set my Apple reminders to change out all toploaders and all penny sleeves with totally new product every 5 years? Does that help? From all I have ever seen, even with older stuff and PVC - you really have to be careless for quite a few decades, as well as unlucky - to get a holder to disintegrate to the point where it actually produces a noticeable effect on a card.

I guess in the end right now, I'm just not convinced that I need to make an overall painstaking investment in mylar, when I'm going to very much likely be dead in 50 years, or shortly thereafter. Does that make sense? Going to the LCS or even freaking Walmart to restock on "standard" hobby supplies - even repetitively - would seem to be a lot simpler. I will admit I might could be convinced though, if Rick's product is easy to use and works with conventional larger holders to put the mylar into.

Thanks for any thoughts.

As someone mostly disinterested... I don't sell supplies, but I've used Mylar, as well as sleeves and toploaders and... Pretty much most hobby supplies that have become available since 1974/5

There are a few benefits beyond how long they last and how they don't interact with what's inside them.

They are a lot clearer than even the new penny sleeves, which are much better than some of the older ones. If there's something that has better clarity than Mylar I haven't seen it. (The first were polyethylene the newer ones are polypropylene. Mylar is polyester. All three are ok archivally, but Mylar is considered to be the best. )

It has a lot more natural stiffness than the penny sleeves. (At least the ones I used had a lot more. ) Think more like cardsaver stiffness. So if you aren't constantly handline the cards, you may not need toploaders.

In a "worst case" scenario. Mylar sleeve with enough room- like a T206 in a sleeve sized for 57-? Topps can self seal to some extent. Which could keep them from water damage. Mylar melts at almost 500F polypropylene at 320F, polyethylene at somewhere between 248-356 F depending on the type. The sleeves were almost certainly the lower end of that.
So A Mylar sleeve near a fire so the sleeve/card gets hot but not hot enough to burn, will probably be ok. The others may melt and laminate to the card.

Even if you're inclined to replace the holders every few years. I'm not, and with a bigger collection, just don't have the time or money.
With Mylar, replacing the sleeves isn't a "must do" sort of thing.

All that being said, I am the sort of person inclined to leave a card in a holder for a very long time. I think I stopped using the pages from 1974 sometime in the early 90's. They were 9 pocket side load, with no extra space so the two rows where the opening faced each other got worn on the edges. I do still have a handful of cards in PVC pages, and more in the first generation of non-PVC pages and some holders from maybe 1980? 81?

None have suffered any damage, aside from a couple I may have creased slightly removing them from the pages.

I've had both penny sleeves and Mylar in a situation that was pretty abusive. I forgot a couple cards on a windowsill...a sunny windowsill... For a couple years :eek: The penny sleeves were too brittle to handle, the Mylar was still perfect.

Archivally, changing out the holders periodically is probably fine, but there's always the chance of damaging the item while handling it.

Thank u
 

got my samples
thank u very much
nice stuff very cool
all the best to you

I go a sample pack yesterday.

These are way better than the ones I had before. Rick even had one of the old sleeves and redid it so the comparison was on the same holder.

The seams on these are very well done, and very consistent.
I tried briefly to get the new ones he sent with cards inside to stick in the toploaders with no luck. Mine had been in the toploaders for a long time, maybe 10 years+ so not a direct comparison, but promising.
They are also much easier to put in the toploaders.*

do not read;)
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They are also less expensive than the ones I used to get, and very reasonable overall.
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Bought some on eBay, and still waiting on Rick's sample. I'm intrigued...:)

I will only use TCVerify products to store my cards--and package my cards for sale.
Unpaid endorsement. This guy is top-shelf. In a world where half the service you receive sucks donkey butt and the other half is typically "hit or miss", Rick is truly a throwback to great customer service and quality control.

Sometimes complaining works.:D

I posted how I did not like the size of the original DIY kits and someone listened.

I just got this new "SAMPLE" version in the mail today. Sorry for the crappy pictures.

First pic is the original with the new WAY better size DIY kit next to it.

Second pic is the new sized DIY kit in between a PSA and SGC slab for size comparison. The best part is it is so much thinner so you can store WAY more protected cards in the same area.

Third picture compares the new size to the old size and a SGC slab.

I met Rick a couple of years ago at a card show out west, and was given a couple of sample packs. Since then I have purchased 100's of his Mylar sleeves and I'm always impressed by his service. Any card of mine that I feel needs some kind of extra protection is now in one of these Mylar sleeves, I've converted my entire collection over to Mylar.

You don't need a "cloudy" penny sleeve inserted into a Card Saver or Top Loader to protect your cards, that just takes up to much room!

https://i.imgur.com/yuH5IYkl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/G7r6cuNl.jpg

Got some more awesome Samples from Rick today of this new product he is working on. The rookie Ted Williams is in a holder for 33 Goudeys and is really a tad too small for the 39. My Red Cobb is in a holder for Small Topps & Bowman cards for now. I am hoping to bother Rick enough he makes ones specifically for T cards.:) The Mathews, Dipken, and Mantle(slightly small reprint) are in correct size holders.

I can't say enough good things about these. Can't wait till they are for sale. Like SGC slabs these holders make the cards look better unlike other companies slabs/plain toploaders. Another plus is all 5 of the cards in Ricks DIY kits are the same thickness as 1 SGC slab.