Sorry in advance if this is one of those well-worn topics. I tried a quick forum search and didn't seem to find an exact answer. Sorry if I missed it. Anyway, I had a sudden flash of lighting fear hit me the other day. I realized that I'm storing lots of my "junk" coins in those clear hard plastic tubes sold by Whitman and others (the ones where the lids don't always thread with the tube bodies). These coins (everything from cents to dollars, copper and silver, but nothing valuable) have sat in these tubes for years (possible 5-10 or more) and don't appear to have any problems. Perusing Amazon, I found "Coin Safe" coin tubes that claimed to have no PVC in them, which made me wonder if the others brands contain PVC. I also found an old 2004 thread on this forum that said, if I'm recalling correctly, that polypropylene tubes are safe. My question is which tubes use polypropylene and which don't? Are "Coin Safe" tubes the only long term safe tubes or do they just have a very effective marketing department?
The plasticizers which are the culprit chemical with PVC are intended to soften the plastic into a flexible form. If you have no flex, you have no problem. In other words, a hard plastic tube won't be a source of worry for you.
+1 to what @SuperDave said. Also, coin tubes sold by Whitman or any other coin supply seller will never contain PVC, so you should never have to worry about this.
Thank you for the replies, everyone! I will cease any worries that plagued my being! And I also need to order more plastic tubes...
