Best Comic Book Sleeves and Backing Boards Bundle
If there is one thing I have always stressed in my blog posts, is that you must always take steps to protect your comic books. The best comic book sleeves that you can buy to protect your comic books are Mylar sleeves. The cheapest ones are made from polypropylene. I want to make an argument about why you can have the best of both worlds when it comes to these materials.
You can buy a mix of costlier and cheaper comic book sleeves for your collection. While it is nice to keep hope alive, every comic book you own is not going to be valuable.
You can buy Mylar comic book sleeves for comic books that you suspect might be valuable before you grade and slab them. And you can buy polypropylene comic book sleeves for non-valuable comic books that you regularly dogear from reading.
Comic book fans usually have a system of organizing comic books – you can do the same with how you protect them with comic book sleeves.
So, you will find a mix of Mylar and polypropylene comic book sleeves and backing board bundles that you can buy on this list.
But first, let’s talk a little more about why you should buy premium and cheap comic book sleeves.
Buy a Mix of Expensive and Cheap Comic Book Sleeves
Unless you’re an expert and get your comic books regularly graded and slabbed, your chances of owning an extremely valuable comic book are probably slim.
We live in an era of billion-dollar comic book films. James Gunn, who will soon launch the rebooted DC Films, announced a slate of new films and people made hundreds of dollars selling old Booster Gold, Batman, and Supergirl comic books.
But those people were prepared. And luck favors the prepared.
Today, you can use comic book apps and online comic book price guides to find out the value of your comic books. These are free first-step options that you can do to get a ballpark estimate of the value of your comic books before you try to profit off of them as a collectibles investment.
Unless you have a very large comic book collection that you organize, inventory, and appraise regularly, you are probably not going to comic across a lot of valuable comic books in your collection. So, you could invest in a small portion of Mylar comic book sleeves for your collection.
Preserving the Value Of Your Comics Is A Good Idea
You are more likely to have a large percentage of comic books that have no value as collectible investments. This does not mean that the comic book has no value – it obviously has sentimental and fan-geek value as reading entertainment. Or you may may want tot pass the collection on to your children and you need to preserve them.
But it is no loss to bag these comic books in cheap polypropylene comic book sleeves.
It may sound callous, considering how sentimentally valuable comic books are to hardcore comic book fans. But this is standard operating procedure whenever valuable comic books are considered.
When you have a valuable comic book slabbed and graded, you can’t open it or touch it to read it. Once it’s slabbed, it’s protected from the elements. Grading and slabbing show potential buyers how serious you are about treating the comic book as an investment.
A copy of Action Comics #1, printed in 1938 and featuring the first appearance of Superman, sold for $3.18 million in January 2022. Whoever bought that comic would be crazy to crack open the slab and touch that comic.
No. The owner of that $3.18 million dollar comic book put that slabbed comic book in a safe. And then they got a cheap reprint of Action Comics #1, bagged in a propylene bag, and read that.
Lignin
Comic books need to be protected because of lignin. Lignin is a biological compound found in wood and its derivative products, like paper. The more that paper is exposed to air or to the oils, sweat, and dirt found on human hands and fingertips, the more lignin will break down the cells in the paper.
Unprotected comic books can become brittle, discolored, and acidic. Unprotected comic books exposed to the elements could completely disintegrate within a few decades and up to 80 years.
Mylar
Mylar is an industrial plastic product that is used to make comic sleeves. Along with incrementally suppressing lignin activity, Mylar can provide a near-airtight environment for a comic book.
Comic book paper releases natural gases that also cause it to disintegrate and fade.
The Library of Congress uses Mylar sleeves and products to protect its physical records. Anything placed in Mylar can survive for 150 years or longer.
Polypropylene
Polypropylene is a cheap plastic product. Comic book sleeves made of polypropylene are designed to last for a decade.
They wrinkle and ripple comic books and won’t stop the worsening of lignin or the release of disintegrative gases in comic book paper unless you tape the lip shut and store it in a dark place.
So, since you know that you need to preserve the value of your comics, the best way to do is to buy a bundle. Here are two of the best comic book sleeves and backing board bundles.
Best Comic Book Sleeves and Backing Boards Bundle
Epakh 120 Comic Book Sleeves and 120 Backing Boards
These are quality comic book sleeves made of polypropylene. The product comes with 120 sleeves. It also comes with 120 matching backing boards. The manufacturer does not specify if the backing boards are acid-free.
This product is mainly designed to accommodate Silver Age comic books. The comic book sleeves and backing boards are slim. They are perfect for use with non-valuable comic books.
Get it at Amazon for $24.
E. Gerber Mylar Comic Book Sleeves and Backing Boards for Golden and Silver Age Comics
This product comes with 50 Mylar sleeves and 50 comic book backing boards. The backing boards are coated with 3% calcium carbonate to suppress lignin activity and the natural release of gases that disintegrate paper.
This product is designed to store Golden and Silver Age comic books. It’s a bit pricey, but worth it to save your more valuable comic books until you decide to grade and slab them
The manufacturer states that if you insert and close your comics in this product, it will protect them from decomposition, oxygen, moisture, mildew, and mold. They even state this product will protect comic books from rodents and insects.
Get it at Amazon for $89.
Read More
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The 6 Best Comic Book Grading and Slabbing Companies
Allen Francis is a full-time writer, prolific comic book investor and author of The Casual’s Guide: Why You Should Get Into Comic Book Investing. Allen holds a BA degree from Marymount Manhattan College. Before becoming a writer Allen was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including saving and investing in your own small business.
