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Acid Paper and Album Pages:

One of the big fads right now, other than mint never-hinged and post-office-fresh - whatever that is, is worrying about whether or not the paper in one’s album is acid free.

For most collectors it doesn’t matter. Unless you intend to store your albums in a hot, humid place with little ventilation, you will die before you notice anything other than the darkening of the edges of the pages of some albums. The closer your album pages are to newsprint in quality, the more chance you might have to worry about acid paper. I have stripped hundreds of parts of collections over the years building my cheapo collection of the world. The only albums where I have found signifcant damage from acid paper were ones that had spent some time in someones attic or basement or came from tropical areas. The exceptions to this were several collections that had glassine interleaving. In these cases, the glassine interleaving went first, followed by the pages, followed by the gum on the mint stamps, and finally the stamps themselves started to darken. The only other albums where I have seen any darkening of the pages but no damage to the stamps or their gum were some post WWII albums from Europe and a few post WWII worldwide albums made in the US. I have seen more damage from improperly used mounts than from acid album page paper. If you are making you own albums from commercial paper, I don’t think you need to worry about the problem, much less spend the extra money to get acid free paper. Most collections rarely last more than 30 years before they are sold and stripped and the stamps mounted in a new album.

Proper storage of your collection is the key. Store the albums upright so they can breath. Store your albums in a room where the air changes regularly. Do not store albums in hot, humid places. Fungi needs warmth and humidity to grow. Chemical decomposition (acid paper) of paper proceeds faster as the temperature increases, and too much humidity will also speed this decomposition. Insects also need humidity. Attics are about the worst place for any paper product as the temperature gets warmer than anywhere else in the house. Humidities get higher and insects have a much easier access to your collection. Long-term storage of collections can cause all kinds of problems. Bank vaults get flooded. Warehouses where furniture is stored aren’t much better than your attic. Don’t put your collection into storage. You will be taking a big chance.

One other thing to think about. A lot of stamps have been printed on cheap acid paper. Many stamps have acid gums. What good is it going to do using acid-free paper if you don’t store your collection properly in the first place and the stamps and/or their gums themselves decompose?

Ken Stewart