How Do You Store Your Collection ?

"Original Government Packaging", like for mint sets, proof coins etc. The plastic case and/or the box the coins were shipped in from the Mint.


Technically, "hard" or rigid plastic indicates the absence of plasticizers that make the plastic soft. For PVC it is the plasticizers, rather than the PVC itself, that causes the damage over time. Nevertheless, it remains true that, as a general rule, "hard plastic = good, soft plastic = bad".


Cardboard 2x2s are perfectly fine for long-term storage. How "good" they are depends entirely on the manufacturer. It certainly is possible to buy chean'n'nasty 2x2s that are either made of PVC or are made of something else that's laced with plasticizer. All of the ones I've been using for the last 20+ years are fine.


No coin dealer I've ever found in Australia sells the flips. The flips I buy are imported direct from FORVM, an ancients dealer in America, so they are not my cheapest option, which is why I only use them for coins that warrant it. By which I mean, ancient coins (which are usually too thick and awkwardly-shaped to fit into a 2x2 easily), worn coins (which often become unreadable if sealed up inside a 2x2), and mediaeval coins (which often need to be examined in hand up close, to read the legends, determine varieties and types, etc).


The sheets I buy hold 20 coins (5 rows of 4). You can see examples on the Print File website. There used to be a local supplier for these, but with the demise of photography supplies shops as everybody went digital, I have to import these from America as well. A pack of 100 pages usually lasts me several years.

I do find it interesting that that website, even though the company aims itself at phographers, also includes pictures of coins in 2x2s in their pages. They have finally realised that coin collectors make up a significant minority of their customer base.

Do you use albums to store coins ? Just sheets for storage ? Question to all Forum participants.

I buy all of them. Folks who collect just one series (like "American coins" or "euro coins"), can afford to just get the coin sizes relevant for that series. But as I collect everything, I need all the sizes. I keep them in a drawer next to the computer where I sort and catalogue all recently-acquired coins. When I have a coin that I think needs to go in a 2x2, I just open the drawer and pick out one that fits best.


Anything that isn't actively outgassing corrosive substances is fine. But rigid plastic boxes are the best, simply because you can stack them up on top of each other and they don't "squeeze" the albums at the bottom of the pile. "Squeezing" a page full of 2x2s, especially if either the 2x2 film or the album page is poor-quality plastic, can result in solvent transfer of plasticizer between the album page and the film - which is what causes the films to turn "sticky" and hard to remove from the pages.

To demonstrate what I mean, let's go back to the Print File website I linked to earlier, and check out the albums that I buy in bulk: Safe-T-Binders. They're rigid polypropylene; they come in ringed and ringless versions (I buy the ringed ones) and they clip shut for transportation if you need to carry them around the place. You can put them on a bookshelf ring-side-up so you don't have to worry about the pages sagging inside the album. Finally, they're more or less a loosely-sealed box, which helps reduce atmospheric exposure. It's not airtight, but it's better than an open binder. The main drawback with them is the clips are just plastic, so tend to break after prolonged use.

I use CAPS Albums. A little on the pricey side, but the best.

I think I've figured out what Sap is talking about. It is best to store the album horizontally. So there is no plasticizer (here I did not understand) this gives a sheet and 2x2 reaction. In turn, the reaction of the plasticizer glues the sheet and 2x2. You will not be able to deliver your 2x2 from the sheet. And in turn, 2x2 can stick to the coin.
But why put albums on top of each other, why not vertically? Well , the leaves will sag and so what ?

It is. They are quite large as well. I am contemplating using them for my Innovation dollars and possibly a third Ike set.

I'll try my best, though it would be easier to show in a video.

It's generally impossible to keep a coin album "right way up" on a bookshelf, the same way you'd usually keep a normal book on a bookshelf, because the pages of a coin album full of coins are much heavier than pages in a normal book. So the pages will sag, and try to tear themselves away from the "top" rings of the album, ruining the pages. To avoid this problem, you really have only two possible solutions: Stack the albums flat, on top of each other, or balance them "sideways", with all the rings of the album at the top.

If either the 2x2 or the album page contains plasticizers - and it can be hard to tell - then you don't want to be keeping coin albums stacked on top of each other. Because if you've got a large stack of coin albums all sitting on top of each other, the weight of all the albums sitting on the top of the pile will "squeeze" down on the albums at the bottom of the pile, and under those pressures, any plasticizer in one or both of two dissimilar plastics will migrate between the plastics. Plasticizer migration usually causes either the album page or the film of the 2x2 (or both) to become "sticky", and you end up with a sticky mess that you'll want to throw away. Note that this doesn't usually affect or ruin the coins themselves, just the album pages and the 2x2 holders the coins are sitting in.Though of course a "sticky" 2x2 is more likely to get totally stuck if left in an album for too long, and the 2x2 is likely to tear apart the next time you try to take that coin out of the album.

This leaves only one optimal solution: putting the coin albums "sideways" on a bookshelf, with the rings at the top. This way, gravity is puling down on all the holes on an album page equally, and they don't sag (though may eventually weaken and tear, given enough time). And, because albums aren't being stacked on top of each other, there's no compression that might result in plasticizer transfer.

Getting a regular binder or coin album to stand up sideways isn't easy, as it doesn't have a square, solid base; you need to prop them up with bookends or other books. The safe-t-binders I linked to earlier are a rigid box, so they have a square base no matter which way you put them in a bookshelf, so they will "stand up sideways" all by themselves.

My thanks also Sap, that gives me more food for thought.