Collectors: Don't leave your stuff out in the light!!

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Porcupine
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Collectors: Don't leave your stuff out in the light!!

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I'm a fairly heavy figure collector so I had to learn this the hard way, but I hope that my advice and knowledge can help others to preserve their collectibles. Light destroys pretty much everything! Most people know direct sunlight fades clothes, but light of almost any kind damages almost anything to various extents! The brighter and less filtered (more UV components) the light is, the more damaging. The resistance of the receiving object is another big factor. But almost anything can be damaged as far as I know, so the only safe way to keep anything in perfect new condition is to leave it in a dark cardboard box forever.

Take a look at this hoarded stash of "new" limited edition (3000 ever produced) once highly sought-after Hyper Fei-Yen Kaiyodo toys on Ebay. This guy ruined all his Fei-Yens so they are worthless now! Probably shouldn't even be selling them for that much but he might not realize that his unopened product is severely light-damaged.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIRTUAL-ON-RVR- ... 5af5fcc3ea

Unfortunately, figures in general are fairly susceptible to light damage, and in particular this Hyper Fei-Yen is ultra vulnerable due to the type of paints used on it. Fortunately, relatively few figures were ever painted using such vulnerable paints, but for a number of years, various Japanese PVC figures were released which would be destroyed by even the slightest amount of light in a very short time.

Can you guys spot all the defects with that Hyper Fei-Yen? (It helps a ton if you have a bunch of real ones like I do, but I'm curious what someone who has never seen a proper looking one before would be able to spot). My own Hyper Fei-Yens look pretty much like that one lol. I do have a spare set that I kept in a dark cardboard box forever since the beginning, but I've never checked them to see if they look ok or not. (I did that out of luck, not due to knowing about light damage).
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MentholMoose
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Re: Collectors: Don't leave your stuff out in the light!!

Post by MentholMoose »

The gold paint looks faded and uneven.

Sunlight can cause harm to many items, but in some cases it is somewhat reversible. For example, yellowed plastic can be improved with a cleaning solution based on hydrogen peroxide. Also, for faded paint, wet sanding with very find sandpaper can help. Search Google for details and more ideas specific to your application.

Keeping collectibles in a box will block UV, but light is not the only enemy. Another thing to watch out for is acid in the storage medium. If the cardboard of the box is slightly acidic, the box contents can be damaged over time. You can get acid-free paper and cardboard to avoid this. There is also humidity, temperature, and other factors to worry about that will affect the condition.

Storage is one thing, but many people want to display their collectibles. One thing that will help is to apply UV blocking film to the windows in the room. The collectibles will be safer, as will the occupants. If you have a glass display case you could apply the film to it. If you are displaying a collectible poster, buy a frame with UV protection.

The big problem is that a lot of collectible items were not designed to remain in mint condition. The packaging was meant to be ripped open and trashed, and the contents were meant to be played with for a while and trashed or sold in a garage sale. Keeping such things in mint condition can be a serious undertaking.
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Porcupine
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Re: Collectors: Don't leave your stuff out in the light!!

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Haha, those yellow Dreamcasts. I read that nowdays PC and console makers favor black cases to hide the yellowing problem. Will we have yellow Xbox 360's in ten years, or has the plastic gotten better?

With PVC figures, some of them will also get sticky and/or hard and brittle with the PVC material underneath the paint suffering from light-damage as well. (Or could this type of damage be heat-related? As it is underneath the paint layers so I would think less light gets that deep). It depends on the type of PVC used and just as with the paints, figure makers noticed the problem and used better materials later on. The Hyper Fei-Yens get goopy and sticky but it's just the paint (regular Kaiyodo Fei-Yens aren't nearly as vulnerable to light damage).

I used to worry only about humidity and temperature as factors for affecting condition, before I found out the hard way that most cases of damage are actually caused by light itself.

Acidic boxes shouldn't be a problem if the toys inside don't touch the box. Usually they're in those plastic things. The plastic things themselves could get brittle or be acidic though (remember those old collectible card sleeves). Probably most boxes are still acidic as I think it is cheaper. I custom framed a large yugioh card recently and framers offer significantly cheaper options for acidic backing or non-UV resistant glass (which I chose as I'm not displaying it anyway).
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MentholMoose
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Re: Collectors: Don't leave your stuff out in the light!!

Post by MentholMoose »

Porcupine wrote:Will we have yellow Xbox 360's in ten years, or has the plastic gotten better?
I don't know, guess we will find out eventually.
Porcupine wrote:Acidic boxes shouldn't be a problem if the toys inside don't touch the box.
I was thinking more along the lines of preserving the item packaging.
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