Moisture: the safe deposit box's worst enemy.

[Jobu]

A safe way to use the silica gel beads is to buy a plastic tupperware container, poke a lot of holes in the lid, and put the silica beads in there with the lid closed. It will still be open to the air but ought to contain all of the gel in case of what seems like a fairly rare meltdown.

According to Wikipedia (proceed with some caution), there appear to be a few things that react with silica gel: "Silica gel is non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-reactive and stable with ordinary usage. It will react with hydrogen fluoride, fluorine, oxygen difluoride, chlorine trifluoride, strong acids, strong bases, and oxidizers."

My guess is that the inital meltdown was due to one non-silica product accidentally being mixed with the silica, causing the problem. For those that use dessicants I would recommend using only a single product rather than mixing multiple products. Also, as I think I mentioned in my post in the original thread, the dessicants that look a lot like cat litter are primarliy composed of non-dessicant material - you can get dessicants that are pure silica gel and therefore pack a lot more wallop per unit volume.

So, after all that babble, my suggestion to Bill is not to put your collection in containers but to put the gel in one instead. That way the cards are more open to the air. When working in the tropics, at the end of the day I always put my gear in an airtight bag with a container of gel and it always worked great (given the conditions I just used a sock but never had any issues - I would not recommend that for cards).

For a follow up question and a bit of a piggyback, does anyone know how water proof PSA, SGC, etc slabs tend to be? Are they even open to the air? If they are fully sealed that would influence concenrs about humidity and exposure to the air.

[ALR-bishop]

In 1993 I lived in St Louis and they had a lot of flooding that year. I had an uncle die that lived in a suburb called Lemay . I was his executor, but his bank with his estate papers was flooded. It was almost 3 weeks until the waters receded enough for them to reopen the bank, and since the safety deposit room was partially under water there were delays in getting access and box holders had to make individual appointment to get into the vault room and check their stuff. You could see the water line that went half way up the rows of boxes. I had no idea where his box was located, but fortunately it was up high near the ceiling, well above the water line. I saw others going through boxes that had been under water for 3 weeks and all the paper documents were completely destroyed.

Since then I have always made sure my boxes have been up high in case of flooding , sprinkler issues, fire ( water to put it out).

But since I have collected each and every Topps set and have them in binders for easy access and display, I have never used my safety deposit boxes for cards. I do keep all my documentation of the cost basis of my cards in the box, and carry insurance on it all.

[glchen]

Thanks, Ian, I got it. That definitely makes sense.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Having worked in banks for 25+ years, I can tell you that vaults do not have any air control system inside so the summers during overnight hours can get pretty hot inside and the winters are the opposite, depending on the climate where you live.

[frankbmd]

Bill,

Protecting your collection from a thermonuclear weapon or an electromagnetic pulse might require additional measures.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Having worked in banks for 25+ years, I can tell you that vaults do not have any air control system inside so the summers during overnight hours can get pretty hot inside and the winters are the opposite, depending on the climate where you live.

Sounds like attic/basement/garage conditions to me.

[e107collector]

I've used one of these for many years. Just plug it in to reactivate every month or so. I love it!

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Liber...t=dehumidifier

Tony

[TanksAndSpartans]

I use this to monitor the situation: http://www.lowes.com/pd_396632-53921...ductId=3830957

I found this recommendation:

http://www.archives.gov/preservation...ly-papers.html

But Googling turns up several variants - I'd be concerned about a RH below 30 or above 60.

Given I keep the cards in an air conditioned house, I don't find the humidity gets that far over 50 even in the humid months, but I still use this to knock it down some:

http://www.amazon.com/Eva-dry-Renewa.../dp/B000H0XFCS

I'd do some testing and if I found the bank was letting the RH get too high because the AC was turned off at night or whatever reason, I'd think about taking my cards out at least during humid time periods. Lack of humidity in the air can cause the cards to get brittle, but for my climate, I don't think that's as much of a concern.

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by Jobu

A safe way to use the silica gel beads is to buy a plastic tupperware container, poke a lot of holes in the lid, and put the silica beads in there with the lid closed. It will still be open to the air but ought to contain all of the gel in case of what seems like a fairly rare meltdown.

According to Wikipedia (proceed with some caution), there appear to be a few things that react with silica gel: "Silica gel is non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-reactive and stable with ordinary usage. It will react with hydrogen fluoride, fluorine, oxygen difluoride, chlorine trifluoride, strong acids, strong bases, and oxidizers."

My guess is that the inital meltdown was due to one non-silica product accidentally being mixed with the silica, causing the problem.

Interesting, thanks for posting Jobu (and awesome username!). My wife had kept this stuff in a ziplock under our kitchen sink where there's plenty of weird stuff, including strong bases and/or acids in all of our cleaning stuff. It's also pretty moist down there, so suspect some things may possibly ooze or precipitate into others.