From personal experience, I advise against using binders and pages. The pages tend to warp or at least bend slightly on the outer edge, even when the binder is stored flat. That leads to damaged banknotes.
Instead, I use PVC-free currency sleeves and boxes from Wizard Coin Supply. The thicker the sleeve, the better. For banknotes worth $4 or more, I use Supersafe Heavyweight Currency Sleeves, which are a combination 5 mil (front) and 10 mil (back) thick. Personally I wish they were 10 mil front and back. I keep cheaper notes in Supersafe Standard Weight sleeves, which are 5 mil thick front and back. All sleeves are stored upright in currency boxes, which are kept in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment. Don't pack the boxes tightly; make sure there's plenty of breathing space.
I buy sleeves in bulk. Brooklyn Gallery is another good source for sleeves and boxes, and may be even cheaper than Wizard. A lot of times it comes down to shipping, though, because Wizard has a flat-rate for orders of $50 or more. Just do the math and see which place is cheaper for what you're ordering, including shipping and sales tax where necessary.
Banknotes are not my major numismatic collectable, and the haphazard nature of my storage system does reflect this.
Most of my "banknote albums" are repurposed from either photograph albums or philatelic first-day-cover albums. Many of the album pages are "Hagner-style", meaning they have opaque black cardboard backing so I can't see both sides of a note without taking it out of the album page.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
All my notes are in archival sleeves or slabbed. For regular sized notes that are raw, I use a red box, for slabbed and larger notes, I use these waterproof ammo boxes from Amazon.
Very interesting read, thanks to all who added their approach. This is a thing I need to tackle soon or later.
I'll add a somewhat related question, hoping Empty_Pockets doesn't mind -- do you somehow clean circulated (or highly circulated) notes before putting them in these sleeves or just put them as they are?
Quote: I'll add a somewhat related question, hoping Empty_Pockets doesn't mind -- do you somehow clean circulated (or highly circulated) notes before putting them in these sleeves or just put them as they are?
The canned answer is that you should not clean anything but I have taken low cost notes with PVC (from improper storage) and rinsed them in acetone, but you need to be careful as acetone will remove color from notes, but between PVC and the acetone, I would rather have a chance of losing some color rather than PVC. I will preface to say that I gave those notes away. I generally only collect stuff that isn't details.
I have 3 ways: my graded notes either go into a TPG (Third Party Graded) currency binder or in boxes like @hfjacinto's demonstrated. I also have notes that go directly in PVC-free sleeves which sit upright in boxes & I also have some sealed notes, in good sleeves, which go directly into albums. I usually place a rechargeable desiccant where I store them to protect the sets from moisture.
The YT content creator "Polar Currency" does a great job of showing how he stores his sets:
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My TPG binders go into a safe similar to Dan's set-up (on Polar Currency). The first 3 TPG binder were supplied by BCS on my 1st banknote submission & only allows one certified sleeve per page but I have grown to like them. They look like this: with a Canadian $5.00 banknote:
Half my reply was cut off so I will add it here. I store my TPG (Third Party Graded/certified notes) in red binders (vertically) similar to how Dan stores his boxes in his safe. Here's the BCS (Banknote Certification Services) binder: They supplied me with my first 3 binders (on my first submission) & I liked them so much that I bought a few extra for my PMG World sets. Here's a $5.00 note inside the BCS binder:
For my certified notes, I have a set of Lighthouse Grande binders with slip cases. I really like those.
For my uncertified notes, all of which are lower value, I use heavy 3-ring binders. I put each note in a sleeve before putting them in the pages of the binder.
joe_77.... I don't clean my used banknotes. I like the intrigue used notes have. It makes you wonder who's wallet they were in, what they bought, and how long they were in circulation.
I appreciate all the advice given in this thread. I think I might go with the sleeves in a box and keep the banknotes that are in an album as is. Joanne
Thanks all on the cleaning tips! I really don't have time right now to tackle this but sooner or later I need to handle the 200ish notes of my family for "long term storage" and some of them are real dirty!
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Posted 07/11/2026 10:40 pm
