Does everyone bag or rebag their cels?

[theultimatebrucelee]

Gotten a bunch of cel bags and microchamber paper nearly half a year ago to replace the older bags, until today though I've only gone through very little of the collection. Its just too much work and time and I don't find much joy in bagging, even though I still love the collection enough to look at them. Then I begin to recall receiving naked cels wrapped around a layer of bubble wrap and sketches with smeared pencil lines, those items that I once purchased from some immense collections. Clearly some big time collectors don't bag their items, which does make sense and I can see cels getting slipped into itoyas without bags.

So, if anyone is willing to share some insight on if and how they take care of their collection(possibly how often, time and effort), I'd appreciate it.

[ginga123]

you are one step ahead of me. i should invest in microchamber paper but i have not taken the time or effort to make that purchase. my cels and sketches are bagged. the cels are stored in itoya portfolios. i do have one portfolio i use to store small or partial cut sketch sets. full cut sketch sets are bagged and stored in a cardboard box right now. (time to invest in a drawer or one of those comic collector boxes.)

i use the bags that are non-seal-able to allow the cel or sketch to breathe while its stored in the portfolios. the bags are changed every other year on my part using cotton gloves (available at your local art supply shop, not michaels or hobby lobby.) if a cel arrives via mail in a cheap or dirty looking bag, i change it out immediately within 24 to 48 hours of arrival. storage for the portfolios and box consist of a dark closet in a cool room.

[sensei]

{Moving topic to "Technical Cel Info/QA"]

I don't have a set schedule for rebagging: I've read suggestions ranging from "every six months" (which seems obsessive) to "every two years" (which seems right to me). In practical terms, during Lent I go through all my cel books looking for cels whose bags are visibly wrinkled. If I find a run of these, I'll change the whole book; otherwise, I just change as needed.

Here's one that is visibly in need of attention, even without removing the cel from its Profolio page.



Taking it out, I can see the extent to which the back of the cel bag has wrinkled. Some bags make relatively large hills and valleys:



And others (especially thin polypro) make a pattern of very tight puckering around the cel paint



I don't know that the science behind this phenomenon is fully known, but cels are chemically active, and clearly there are reactions going on among the cel paint, the trace lines, and the plasticizers used to turn the brittle cellulose acetate into flexible sheets. Plus (as is well known) the cellulose acetate itself can become unstable and revert to its chemical components, notably acetic acid or vinegar, resulting in the self-destruction of the cel.

The chemicals venting from the cel are visibly destructive of the plastic that makes up cel bags, and so a buildup of these presumably can damage the cel itself. When I change the bag, I often can see a powdery residue on the back of the cel that matches the hill-and-valley pattern of the damaged bag. So it makes sense that cel bags should be changed when they show visible damage.

I've gone from simply leaving bags unsealed to clipping a corner to slitting the bag down one whole side. The latter does seem to allow the cel to ventilate more freely and slows the rate of bag damage.

Concerning microchamber paper: I use that for my "Golden Age" (pre-1990) cels, especially if I find they have a strong chemical smell. But, since it is expensive, I generally save that for my sketches, which I do seal up tight and store in archival boxes.

[nowherekid85]

Concerning microchamber paper: I use that for my "Golden Age" (pre-1990) cels, especially if I find they have a strong chemical smell. But, since it is expensive, I generally save that for my sketches, which I do seal up tight and store in archival boxes.

Can I ask what it is about sketches that you should seal them up tight for? Does air hurt them over time? I'm not as familiar with storing sketches. For the sketches I have that are by themselves, I just put in a spare Itoya binder with microchamber paper. The sketches I have that go with cels, I put them in the pocket behind the cel and bg they belong to in my other Itoya binders (cel in a bag by itself of course). Should I be taking them all out and storing them separately in archival boxes?

As for rebagging, I do rebag when I get a new cel, because usually the bag is all wrinkled up and/or sealed shut. If the bag is in good shape, I might leave it. I think every couple of years at most is pretty good for rebagging in general. Maybe a little sooner just for the cels that end up needing it.

[sensei]

I was just stressing that cels should not be sealed up tight but should be allowed to vent fumes as freely as possible to the surrounding air. By contrast, it doesn't hurt sketches to have them in sealed bags, especially if you include microchamber paper to absorb any by-products of aging in the paper itself. The white paper is probably stable, but the colored paper may have a higher acid content, so I separate it from the white-paper sketches with an acid-free backing board. (Get a packet of acid-free 12 x 12 cardstock, any color, at your craft store and cut it to size. I have a paper cutter that gets heavy use when I'm doing maintenance.)

Generally keeping sketches away from light and climatic changes keeps them healthy. But I'm not obsessive about keeping them absolutely airtight. I routinely poke a vent in a corner so the stack of sketches won't "balloon" up but will all lie flat.

I do the same as you do with dougas that go with cels, but I do put them in their own bags, mainly because the cels are chemically active and the gases they produce might be harmful to the paper. They certainly are harmful to the bags they are stored in. For sketch sets, I'd say a good archival box is a good idea . Bags Unlimited has a Small Sheet Music Storage Box that is the right size for most anime sketch sets.

[cutiebunny]

I recently purchased an archival container on Amazon called "IRIS Scrapbook" and have been happy with it thus far. I wanted something to store my autographed shikishi and had been running out of room to store them with the sketches. Shikishi boards are bulkier items than cels and douga. There are two things I don't like about the box. The first complaint is that the container is clear, so perhaps putting something in the box, like a thin layer of dark cloth, would work to eliminate any possible indoor light from damaging the boards. The second is that the lid for the box is a small container itself, but that just means it's empty space. You can't remove the top container as it features the mechanism needed to seal the box shut. The box holds around 70 boards (lost count after a while..) and comes with removable dividers. I'm debating on purchasing a couple more just to store my CCS and Kobato backgrounds as the current containers I'm using are just taking up too much space.

My policy is to rebag everything upon arrival. By now, I can usually guess whether or not the item was packaged in polypropylene, polyethylene or some other random plastic bag that was lying around. Even so, I have no idea as to how long these items have been in those bags, so by changing them upon receipt, I ensure that items are packaged inside quality bags. I started my cel rebagging in January and am about halfway through the cel books. Yeah, it does take a long time. But I try to get a little done every time I'm off.

I've purchased bulk microchamber paper and then trim it down the to size I need. Sometimes, I just throw the entire sheet in the cel bag because it's easier to do that, but I trim it for the shikishi and use the remainder for the postcards.

[Jadeduo]

*pops out of lurker mode, will be back this weekend! RL... sighs*

To reiterate what has been said here, I currently re-bag about every 2-3 years. It is actually kind of shocking how fast the time flies between rebags, and the bigger your collection the more prohibitively expensive is to start a big rebagging project. It can take me about a month or two to complete a rebag, I will check the cel for damage or dust and replace the microchamber paper on the piece, as well as the bag, if the bag is in good shape still I will save it for the matching douga if the douga does not have a bag in the folder with it's cel. (I also try to keep the matching dougas with the cel, on the same page of the itoya binder) . I generally cut a piece of microchamber paper into quarters and put it in the bag with every cel on the front. This of course makes the cel very hard to see when you are flipping through the book, but it is worth it as it seems to make rebagging process a lot easier I have noticed after my first big rebag back in 2012-er 11? The cels that I put the microchamber paper in the cel did not get stuck to the bag nearly as hard as a some of the cels in bags without the microchamber paper.

Also the rebagging times are not an exact science that I track because, I am always adding pieces to the collection and when I do, I rebag EVERYTHING. Even if it looks like the seller put the piece in a new bag. The truth is you don't know how long the cel has been sitting in it's own fumes and that can cause problems down the line so when a new piece comes in once it is processed it goes into a brand new bag and gets put away. ^_^

There is a seller on amazon that I use that sells the size bags I need in bulk I believe it is like 500 for $60, which is pretty good when you are planning a re-bag... Microchamber has to either be purchased direct from them or from Bags Unlimited and is not cheap @_@ hence the cutting into quarters. I did want to ask; has anyone bought any of the microchamber boxes? I was thinking of purchasing those instead of bagging individual sketches with microchamber paper, and just bagging and then stacking them on top of each other maybe a box per series (sometimes more *coughs* Loveless)? Any thoughts on this?

I haven't yet decided on a system for sketch storage right now I bag the sets together and put them in a drawer together. It's an old dresser that I've had for years that I use only to store sketches in, I am not sure if this is a viable long term solution, but it keeps them from the light which can speed up chemical reactions. So it is good for now, in the meantime, on my list of things to do, is do some research on paper storage as it is VERY different from cel storage, although I am sure that some of the same principles apply.

*Oozes back to lurker mode*

JD

[theultimatebrucelee]

Thanks to all the members that replied thus far, its interesting to see the amount of work everyone does to take care of their precioussss. It also looks like many collectors are practicing the "standard" techniques. Initially though I started the post thinking someone here has a less time and effort consuming storage method that's proven safe, guess in the end hard work saves the days. Was reading the tests on Disney's cel collection article sensei linked, and I think somewhere they mention they have an air conditioned storage for their 200,000 cels. But temperature and humidity aside, I'd be really carious as to how and what they use to contain each individual cel.

@sensei: Thanks for the photo demonstration. I've been following your old clipping corner technique so far with a piece of microchamber paper on top of the cel and last I checked, almost all my cels seem to be doing well. Unsealed bag just seem to be easy and efficient. Do you bag the cels unsealed And slit one side as well?