Whitman Folder Coin Damage

There are many plastics made of PVC and the PVC itself is not harmful to coins. The harmful element is a softening agent that is sometimes put into PVC to make it soft and flexible. When this softening agent is not put into PVC, then the PVC is strong and is very hard, stiff/rigid, and almost brittle at times. It's the soft PVC ya gotta worry about, not the hard PVC

When people talk about PVC residue on coins, what they are really talking about is residue from the softening agent put into the PVC plastic to make it soft and pliable. Things like soft coin flips, the outer vinyl covers of albums, shower curtains - all these things are made of PVC and all of them have the softening agent in them. Over time that softening agent breaks down and as it breaks down it releases a gas as all things do when they decay. That gas then condenses once it's in the air and is deposited on the coins in a thick, viscous liquid form. It is that liquid that harms the coins.

 

To the best of my knowledge, and I only know it as another member reported it a while back, the only change has been that they no longer put glue on the entire back cover page like they did for decades. I am told that they now put the glue on the inner cardboard portion so the outer cover will stick to it instead of the other way around.

For decades the downside of the coin was in direct contact with the exposed glue on the back cover. It has been reported here on the forum that that is no longer the case.

But other than that, they're just as bad/harmful for coins as they always were.

As for alternatives, they have been mentioned in this very thread - and many, many, other threads.