How to maintain your magazine collection

[ortizimo]

hello everyone...I am currently in the process of gathering nintendo power magazines for my collection, but I have never been involve in collecting any paper type material. I would like to know if there are ways to maintaining your collection for prosperity. I have purchased poly bags for them but I have other questions like:

- if there's a tear on a page, should I use clear tape to make sure it doesn't continue tearing?

- is there other ways to repairing or preventing further damage?

- is there a way to repair lose pages/spines?

- any other advise?

Thanks in advance.

[Areala]

Hello, Ortizimo! Welcome to the site!

To answer your questions:

- If you're planning on preserving your collection, then don't use tape, clear or otherwise, to repair the tear. The tape will look awful after several years' time, and a taped up page would actually make the magazine worth less than a simple tear in my opinion.

- Ways to prevent further damage? I'd suggest an acid-free polybag with an acid-free backing board. Beyond that, just take care when handling it so it doesn't get worse, and don't loan it to friends.

- Depending on the magazine binding, you might be able to apply some glue to the spine, but this will only work with covers that actually have spines. If they are the earlier issues of Nintendo Power, which were staple-bound with a simple folded cover, there's nothing to be done except be careful when re-reading.

- Other advice: you can get magazine-sized archival storage boxes from most shops that deal with collectibles (they look like short comic book boxes, only wider). Use these to store your collection, as they're an easy way to keep them upright, collated, and away from moisture and other things that hate paper. Store them inside, preferably somewhere cool and dry, and try to put the box on a shelf that is a few inches up off the floor in the event of flooding, leaks, broken water heaters, etc...

But the best advice of all I can give is to make sure you enjoy them. Don't be afraid to open them, read them, flip through them, and enjoy the good and the bad. They're our history, warts and all, and it's important we all remember where our hobby came from to begin with.

*huggles*
Areala

[Phillyman]

Fantastic advice Areala! I wholeheartedly agree that masking tape should never be used on a tear.....just as much as a magic marker should never be used to blank an address label. I use the following products to protect my magazines.

Banker Boxes

Magazine Backers

Magazine Bags

Steel Shelving Unit

Don't even think of storing boxes full of magazines on a kitchen grade shelving unit. You will learn the meaning of "Nintendo Power" as the shelf bends under all the weight!

[ortizimo]

Thank you all for your advice.

[RetroDefense]

I use boxes specifically designed for magazine storage - those Areala mentioned. And the majority of my collection is bagged and boarded - especially anything saddle-stitched and/or in fragile condition. I don't tape ripped pages or attempt to rebind anything as it usually creates more trouble over time. If anything, I'll note the damage in my collection doc and also with the bagged issue itself.

A tip when it comes to magazine bags. You'll find some sold with their own adhesive strips. No tape is necessary - just fold over the flap, adhere to the strip, and you're done.

Sounds great, but the bag designers never read EGM during its heyday, apparently. Magazine issues with high page counts won't allow the closing flap to properly reach the adhesive strip. So standard bags (and some Scotch Magic tape) is the better way to go. Or - at the very least - you may want to stock a combination of both types of bags.

As for oversized magazines (Game Informer, Official Dreamcast Magazine, etc), I'm not sure if boxes/boards/bags are designed for this size. I'm still looking for a good storage solution for these myself - I'll have to give Phillyman's banker box suggestion a try.

And I definitely second Areala's suggestion to store your collection in a water-safe area! A faulty water heater nearly cost me my collection years ago. You'd be surprised how light those boxes can be when you're energized by a slowly encroaching pool of water.

[Areala]

Yeah, the water-safe tip was inspired by my own incident of trying to protect my stuff while our basement started its own water collection during a particularly long period of rain. It wanted to store the water in roughly the same spot I was keeping my Dragon Magazine collection.

*huggles*
Areala

[te72]

Seeing as my collection is only about 250 or so issues (mostly PSM and PTOM), I just keep them in my entertainment center. Nice and dry, and it's all behind cover of the doors on said entertainment center.

However, the trouble I find, is that the binding is slightly thicker than the opposite end of the magazine, which after 100 or so issues on a shelf, causes them to bulk up on the front. I've always wanted some boxes that I could stick a couple year's worth of issues in. Anybody use anything similar?

[Anthony1]

I actually do put tape on tears, because I feel like if I don't put some tape on it, the tear will just spread and get worse. Of course, I like to browse through my mags a lot, and handle them a lot, so the chance of me making a tear even worse is pretty high.

However... there is still a right and wrong way to tape up a magazine. If you do it the wrong way, it can be very crappy looking. The key is to only use as much tape as you need, and make sure the tape is an even square or rectangle shape when you tape the area with the problem. Only use as much tape as you need, and be gentle in applying the tape. Really, it just takes a bit of practice to tape up mags preventively, in the right way.

Sometimes the piece of tape that I'm using to tape up the mag is super, super tiny, and nobody would even notice that it had any tape on the magazine at all, unless I pointed it out to them. I still think it's better to tape something when the rip is small, than to potentially let that rip spread.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Anthony1

[KiwiArcader]

I have 1200 mags approx. sitting on industrial strength shelving in my basement but my answer to how to store them is cut up and scan the mags with a document scanner and then throw them out. Saves heaps on space and drops all that weight off the house foundations :-)

[Anthony1]

I have 1200 mags approx. sitting on industrial strength shelving in my basement but my answer to how to store them is cut up and scan the mags with a document scanner and then throw them out. Saves heaps on space and drops all that weight off the house foundations :-)

I think there is a true joy in sitting in a nice comfortable chair, and holding a real magazine in your hand, and thumbing through the pages of a real magazine.

Eventually, there will be some type of digital paper or something, that gives me that good feeling of holding it in my hands and thumbing through it, yet the info on it is wirelessly updating, and you only need to have one 10 page magazine, and it just keeps updating the curent 10 pages you're looking at. It's going to need to be some new, revolutionary technology though, because looking at a printed page, is nothing like looking at a screen that is constantly refreshing. It's going to need to be some breakthru technology where it has all the benefits of being digital, without any of the downsides.

[KiwiArcader]

I agree wholeheartedly when it comes to large photographic books (I love Egyptian history books and have several) printed on really nice paper stock but as someone who has had old paperbacks and magazines turn fragile and in a few cases have the paper actually start to disintegrate (old Edgar Rice Burroughs novels) I would rather sit down and read them on my Galaxy Note Pro or iPad Mini than see them fall apart.

For me it's all about the content rather than the medium it is delivered on nowadays when it comes to novels and magazines. Being able to travel and take dozens of mags comics and novels to read on the plane sure beats being stuck with one book due to weight restrictions etc. Sounds strange coming from someone in his 50's right?