Slide Storage Concerns - For How Long & Archival Plastic Pages vs. Metal (Tin?) Storage Boxes

[DF]

How "healthy" is it for a color slide to remain inside a PrinFile plastic page inside a PP5 storage box? How many years?
I've noticed recently that minute amounts of dust or particles seem to be able to make their way into the "pouch" where the slide is.
Some are in these three-pronged binders and others 'hanging' inside file containers with Zorb-It desiccants inside.
Of course paged slides allow for quick viewing of groups rather than picking up each one one-at-a-time.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

My ancient Kodachrome slides have been in archival-grade PrintFile sleeves for...decades. More too, in the traditional yellow Kodak boxes, the earliest being 1979.
No special treatment for sleeved storage — about 300+ pages in two large 2-ring ring folders, shelf-stored and often brought out for discussion when I have dinner nights. Other slides have been cut from sleeves and mounted in polypropylene card mounts to facilitate scanning. All of these are stored in a plain, untreated wooden file box.

 

[bdial]

My experience has been similar to Taylor’s, I’ve several hundred slides in archival pages, and the oldest are between 30 and 40 years. Lots more in the cardboard boxes. They are doing OK.

 

[DF]

My ancient Kodachrome slides have been in archival-grade PrintFile sleeves for...decades. More too, in the traditional yellow Kodak boxes, the earliest being 1979.
No special treatment for sleeved storage — about 300+ pages in two large 2-ring ring folders, shelf-stored and often brought out for discussion when I have dinner nights. Other slides have been cut from sleeves and mounted in polypropylene card mounts to facilitate scanning. All of these are stored in a plain, untreated wooden file box.

Very encouraging to hear, except for this "archival grade" sleeving: the sleeving I already have is "lower grade" - I'll have to upgrade (more$$)? I thought EVERYTHING from PrintFile was archival quality. 'Guess I'll have to go to their website.
Also, there isn't any particles/dust crept into the pockets?

 

[DF]

Either - neither of you two don't live in a warm humid climate?

 

[loccdor]

Do you have a forced air heating system? I'm in a humid summer climate, frequently around 60% and leave the windows open most of the time in the summer. But in winter humidity gets down below 30% for just about half the year because of the heating system. And because of that I never get mold in the house. The downside is that it makes skin uncomfortably dry in winter.

 

[DF]

I

Do you have a forced air heating system? I'm in a humid summer climate, frequently around 60% and leave the windows open most of the time in the summer. But in winter humidity gets down below 30% for just about half the year because of the heating system. And because of that I never get mold in the house. The downside is that it makes skin uncomfortably dry in winter.

I live on a busy heavily trafficked street in a big northern city and dust balls and particles are constantly forming on the floors. I keep the windows open.
Many of my slides are still in the small boxes they came back in housing 36 - 39. Some, not all, have dust on the inside so I give my slides a slight brushing with a soft brush. The plastic sleeved are also unexplainably erratic - some have dust/particles inside them while others don't.

 

[DF]

My experience has been similar to Taylor’s, I’ve several hundred slides in archival pages, and the oldest are between 30 and 40 years. Lots more in the cardboard boxes. They are doing OK.

How often do you take them out to give a GOOD look at them? Are they completely dust/particle free?

 

[DF]

Now I know what I need - a good Ionizer/air purifier!!

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Very encouraging to hear, except for this "archival grade" sleeving: the sleeving I already have is "lower grade" - I'll have to upgrade (more$$)? I thought EVERYTHING from PrintFile was archival quality. 'Guess I'll have to go to their website.
Also, there isn't any particles/dust crept into the pockets?

I'm not concerned by dust.
You came from dust and you will return to dust. That's why i don't dust; it could be someone I know.

 

[bdial]

How often do you take them out to give a GOOD look at them? Are they completely dust/particle free?

Not very often, once a year at most, I’ve not noticed an excess of dust. The pages live in the enclosed binder boxes that printfile and other companies make. So there is no direct path for dust to reach the slides. But paper is dusty in itself. And so is the air anytime you open things up.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Either - neither of you two don't live in a warm humid climate?

We encounter high humidity at times, whether hot or cold, and all through the year. Right now it is the late in the first month of Autumn, and humidity has been 80% to 90% for the last three days as a cold and wet southerly clearance from Antarctica comes through. It is often very humid at night, but not universally so. As of late this morning, humidity had dropped to around 59%RH. Fine, warm weather on the way next week, but alas, I'm trading places for a sub-polar environment!