These confederate notes are important to us. They are family heirlooms and came from my wife’s great aunts home after she passed….. Anyway, I just noticed the sleeves have that old rubbery feel to them like the PVC flips that damage our coins…. Will PVC sleeves damage bills?
Randy, I got some at Hobby Lobby that seem to be OK. They are similar to ones I have used before without issue. Plus, I got some that hold about 10 bills.
We cleared out her great aunts house in the mid-1980’s so they have been in those sleeves that long. And for the life of me I don’t remember buying the sleeves. I didn’t even know PVC was an issue until I joined CT.
PVC is not the issue. Poly Vinyl Chloride is a hard rigid plastic. To make it soft, they add plasticizers, and that's actually the problem.
You need to remove them from those sleeves immediately. Then air dry for a week before putting in new PVC free sleeves. Nice that you have a family heirloom in these bills. All 4 are considered common CSA Notes. You should also jot down the family history and keep with the notes.
Me, personally, I wouldn't worry about it too much if they were kept as they were. I had some fractional notes this year that were in the same holders for over 25 years. The holders were turning yellow and were in quite a poor state. I took the notes out for replacement and found that the notes were in perfectly fine condition with no signs of discoloring or deterioration.
I just had the pleasure of going over a co-worker's father's collection. He had an album of World notes (his father left him) & several of these had terrible PVC currency sleeves which turned yellow. My friend replaced the sleeves with good ones (I'm happy to say) but yes, overall there's much hype about bad PVC sleeves (& rightly so) but you usually have some time before they ruin your notes! Just don't push your luck! LOL
nice notes PVC absolutely will destroy them so get them out of there ASAP not sure how long they have been in there ? but PVC holders are famous for lifting print as a better choice try MYLAR its what allot of TPG use.
I have a small currency collection. How do I know what material the holders are? All I know is where I bought my Currency Wallet holders through Wizard Supply Co. There or through Amazon. Forget now but it wasn't a long time ago. It must be on the black cover, no?
you can get poly sleeves which is also acid free and designed for long term storage made by BCW at at a really good price and where else but amazon Had a really nice baseball card collection that was destroyed by PVC inserts first they start getting hard then they discolor by that time game over, so I recommend either buying certified which protects the note and preserves the value.
It's well worth the small investment to buy a small pack of archival sleeves. They'll preserve your treasures for many years. Why take the chance of permanently damaging them? Bruce
Unfortunately there are way to many people using PVC products not knowing about the hidden danger so hopefully thats a wake up call to those that read this thread.
