How do you store annuals

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English32
Posts: 1
Joined: 28 Feb 2021, 02:11

How do you store annuals

Post by English32 »

Hi everyone I am new here just looking for a bit of advice please.

I grew up reading Dandy annuals and also have some old Dandy annuals of my parents from the 60s and 70s which are still in relatively good condition.

I am wondering what the best way is to store these?

I was thinking of putting them in plastic comic book bags (sealed with the correct tape you can get) and then putting them in some thing like this:-
https://www.plasticboxshop.co.uk/craft- ... ge-box-p95
Maybe 3 or 4 to a box with some silica gel packs to stop moisture then sealing the boxes with tape and storing the boxes on a book case.

Is this a good idea or is there a better way to store them?

I plan on photographing each page of the annuals so I have a "digital version" of each annual so I don't have to handle them every time I want to read them as I love reading them but I don't want to ruin them so this would be a long term storage option.

Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated, as I said I'm new to this.

Many thanks.

Goof
Posts: 208
Joined: 15 May 2018, 19:43

Re: How do you store annuals

Post by Goof »

You may know about this already, but if you haven’t seen it you might find it worth looking at the advice of 30th Century Comics on storage:

https://30thcenturycomics.co.uk/comic-storage/

Another point may be worth considering. I’m no expert on this topic, but the worst deterioration problem that I’ve come across with annuals doesn’t concern the paper or colour, but the binding. With a few mostly early exceptions, children’s annuals were not bound in signatures – the pages were stuck individually into the backing glue. As a result, single pages will come loose very easily as the glue becomes brittle with age. I don’t know whether there’s anything that can be done about this, but you may like to see whether anybody has any ideas on how it can be prevented. It may be, for instance, that annuals need a certain minimum level of humidity to retard the drying out of the backing glue.

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Digifiend
Posts: 7315
Joined: 15 Aug 2007, 11:43
Location: Hull, UK

Re: How do you store annuals

Post by Digifiend »

I've just been sorting through my annuals. And one Dandy Book did have a couple of loose pages and a few missing pages. Luckily it was a duplicate and the other copy is in good condition. Can't sell it at a car boot sale when they resume like the few other duplicates I have (who'd want a book with missing pages?), so that one's heading for the bin.

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