In my opinion the acid problem, while certainly a long-term threat, can be neglected. Admittedly those games weren't produced with archival durability in mind, but they should still survive a period of 50-60 years without any such corroding effects becoming apparent. I have a bunch of books and documents from the 19th Century, and they still are all in fairly good shape. High humidity and direct sunlight are factors that will speed up the ageing process, but they can be omitted rather easily.
The bigger problem as I see it is the constant exposure to oxygen and dust, which results in the much deprecated color loss and yellowing of the paperwork. Take Silver Age comics for example. Most are still in sound condition, the paper hasn't suffered any fatal structural damage. However, yellowing/tanning and color loss can ruin the impression of an otherwise fine copy. I'm currently storing most of my vintage software in mylar covers with air holes, to expose them to as little air and dust as possible while maintaining a necessary minimum of air exchange. The more you give them a chance to "breath", the more smell they will absorb, and the quicker the paperwork tends to tan. Lastly, certain type of shrinkwrap appears to be extremely susceptible to dust, making it brittle within just a few years, even when other ageing factors such as UV light have been avoided. Again a secondary plastic cover seems to be best to avoid this. /Alexander -----Original Message----- From: Marco Thorek [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 2:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] How to preserve them? Hello fellow collectors, although I keep my games at fairly adequate environmental conditions (smokefree, no direct sunlight, etc.) I notice that they are "working." Some manuals have a sweet smell to them, even on those games that I originally purchased and that were always kept under the conditions above. What I fear is that in the long run, say 20 or 30 years, the paper of the manual and boxes will start to crumble due to the acid in it. I know that there's now way to save the disks, but this really worries me. To make long things short, what do you do to prevent that? I already had a look at what libraries do about that, but affording a vault in the basement with a humidity and a temperature controller is a little beyond my financial boundaries. Marco ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
