Cel Preservation & Keeping VS cels

[kizu]

So I was curious what the community thinks. One of the reasons that is commonly cited for collecting cels is to own a piece of the anime and "preserve it". I'm curious on the preserve part because now that I've been in this hobby for 15 years now, I realize how difficult it truly is to maintain a cel collection and preserve it at the same time. It took years before I knew what I was doing and another few years to actually get to a level that I could say, I'm really taking care of my cels both from an ignorance and financial perspective.

But now that time has passed and I'm noticing more and more that sellers seem to be off loading cels that maybe "questionable" or have "vinegar syndrome"... We know VS is a death knell for the cel but sometimes you just don't know until you get the cel and especially if you buy it from overseas. On one hand I've received a couple from a very old series that I absolutely adore (70s anime) and I have to ask myself what do I do... Return it to the seller who wasn't upfront (although in some circumstances you can't even ask a seller like in yahoo japan) or just keep it because you know returning it just means the cel will languish faster since the previous owners didn't take care of it or lacked the knowledge or simply was unmotivated. Generally if the seller is someone I can communicate with I usually tell them and work out a fairer outcome.

So I'm finding that for certain anime, I'm okay with VS and prefer to get the VS cel at a low price (depending on how bad the VS is) so I can put it in conditions that may let it survive another decade or two - rather than let it be with someone who probably just want rid of it. But then I also have cels that I don't really have affinity to, I got them from lot purchases and bulk trades and it makes me think I wish I can sell them to someone who would take care of them rather than sell them later for a quick or sometimes slow buck. I keep them in generally good environmental conditions but not the best that I do for my main collection because those climate controlled cabinets are expensive.

I don't know... Is that weird thinking? To be frank the first couple of cels that I found with vinegar syndrome back then, I immediately thought of selling but then I realized how much I loved the show that I ended up setting up a separate environment because I realized I'm probably going to face this now that the show is 50 years old. I even sent a few to a conservator who claimed they can stabilize the cel and I think they did to an extent. But what do you all think? Am I wasting money? Maybe?

[tarakatsuki]

Curious which conservator you sent your cel to? Did the cel have more advanced VS?

[MoiAlmathea]

I'm wondering about that. Yesterday I was rebaging my cels and realized that a cel I put for sale and that was okey a few months ago has now VS. It's not bad yet (and it was stored with other cels that seem perfect both in smell and look).
So i'm wondering: do I seriously lower the price as I wanted to sell it before the VS took place (and of course say that it has VS)? Or do I send it for restoration with a couple of other older pieces to Cel Oasis?
Mmh difficult to decide what's best for the cel and for me...

[tarakatsuki]

So i'm wondering: do I seriously lower the price as I wanted to sell it before the VS took place (and of course say that it has VS)? Or do I send it for restoration with a couple of other older pieces to Cel Oasis?
Mmh difficult to decide what's best for the cel and for me...

I guess it depends on how high end the cel is. If it's average at best I would probably just lower the price and give the buyer information on Cel Oasis and let them decide if they want to spend the money.

I currently have a cel being treated at Cel Oasis. It's been there a couple of months now so likely should be ready very soon. Still curious if that is the conservator mentioned in the original post here.

[godaikin]

Just curious if you ever received your cel back from Cel Oasis. Did they actually fix your cel and honor their claim of halting VS? (I've often heard that once VS starts, it cannot be stopped. It can only be slowed down.) Thanks again for sharing.

[tarakatsuki]

Just curious if you ever received your cel back from Cel Oasis. Did they actually fix your cel and honor their claim of halting VS? (I've often heard that once VS starts, it cannot be stopped. It can only be slowed down.) Thanks again for sharing.

Assuming you were talking to me, I got my cel back months ago. Of course I can't tell just by looking at it, how effective the treatment was, because it's all at a molecular level. Just in case I still had the cel separate, and the bag it's in hasn't started to wrinkle up which is good.

[noildoof]

I got this depressing set off YAJ recently, and I plan on immediately sending it off to Cel Oasis for restoration.

Why do people do this? Who was careless enough to jam this pretty set somewhere to the point where the background crumpled and the cels bent? The seller said it smelled of vinegar, which makes it all the worse... I'm hoping it's actually something less serious like mildew or paint fumes, but we'll just have to wait and see. I have other cels from the same seller (and same source) that are okay, so maybe it'll turn out not to be vinegar (fingers crossed).

To add insult to injury this is a deleted scene... it's literally lost media. Someone treated lost media like this.