Seeking Advice on Preserving My Banknote Collection

Hello fellow collectors,

I’m an avid collector of banknotes from around the world and have amassed nearly 1,000 different notes in my collection. I meticulously catalog and store them in Leuchtturm binders, using individual sleeves for each note, as shown in the attached photo.

However, I’ve noticed that over time, the plastic sleeves are starting to wrinkle, which unfortunately affects the notes themselves, many of which are uncirculated.

I’m reaching out to this knowledgeable community for suggestions on how to prevent the plastic from wrinkling and to ask for your tips on the best practices for storing these binders—should I keep them vertically or horizontally?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance for your help.

Best regards,

Pedro Vitorino

Store your precious banknotes in reputable sleeves. I have been using Leuchtturm Vario 1, 2, 3 and 4 sleeves for more than 30 years now, and I only use them for all my UNC notes. So far, I have no issues with my banknotes. I do not know what kind of environment you have over there, here, our summers are usually dry, with low humidity too. Always store your notes in a dry and cool area. Avoid taking them out on a rainy day. Foxing is always a concern. I also note that Vario sleeves are not getting popular here as dealers claim that they are getting slightly expensive, but I like them and when I buy them, I buy packs of say 10+. 
 

Good luck

Use hard sleeves if you have to double pocket them.

I believe its the 3 pocket pages he's having trouble with.  There are a lot of older numismatic binder, page & currency sleeve products that have proven to be unsuitable for storing banknotes.

Anyway, as @ahkai and @Idolenz suggest, you probably should replace either your currency sleeves or your 3 pocket pages (I suspect the pages could be problematic). I also used to store my binders upright (rather than on top of each other) so your notes remain vertical. Gravity can also play an important role in how your plastic presses on the adjacent note. 

And humidity is a “killer” so the notes need to be stored in a dry place (no basements). If you live in a humid environment, you might want to invest in a hygrometer to measure the humidity in your storage area & keep a dehumidifier in the room you select to store them in.  You may also want to purchase a desiccant  (or rechargeable desiccant) so you can keep humidity lower in your storage areas.  I have desiccants everywhere (& replace them often) & don't live in a particularly humid environment.  I eventually got rid of my binders (don't trust the 3 pocket pages) & just store my notes in the driest area of my house & keep them in museum quality currency sleeves (mylar, or such).   

No look at the pictures it is the soft/semisoft sleeves the banknotes are put in first, the 3 compartment pages are rigid and don't deform in such a way.

Idolenz

No look at the pictures it is the soft/semisoft sleeves the banknotes are put in first, the 3 compartment pages are rigid and don't deform in such a way.

The pages I had actually deformed & I got rid of them 24 years ago.  I bought a 2nd set of soft 3-pocket pages (that look nothing like the pages shown in the photo) but I later transferred all my notes into boxes.  The newest pages I had were not shiny: that's why I replied to this post. 

In the past, I have always used a product called “Damp Trap” in my closet & wherever I store my banknotes. I also throw in the odd silica pack. More recently I have wanted to put a dehumidifier in some of the other areas I store my notes.  I don't live in a very humid environment but there are big temperature swings & I would “rather be safe than sorry.” I've seen a lot of notes damaged by poor storage & obvious humidity problems.

I just picked up this rechargeable AIR DRYER dehumidifier from Direct Imports on eBay:

I charged it up (plugged it in the USB port) yesterday and the crystal window turned a dark blue (from red).  I don't know how the product will perform but I think its preferable to have a rechargeable dehumidifier rather than the silica packs & damp traps I've been using/throwing out. 

I saw a few other collectors post images of rechargeable dehumidifier units (designed for gun safes) in the US & thought it would be good to get something similar.  I will post an update in a few months time once I know how well it works. Seems good so far.

Update:

As promised, I am updating how the dehumidifier crystals work (from my February 25 post).  They show dark blue when dry & become light pink when the humidifier needs to be re-charged. 

Since my Feb purchase:

I have discovered that the 2 dehumidifiers  I bought can discharge quite quickly, sometimes as fast as 1 week. I have been trying to stay on top of charging them every-other-week (once every 2 weeks) but I may need to step it up to weekly charges. 

Hi Pedro,

Yikes those wrinkling sleeves look pretty scary. Hope you were able to find a solution for your collection.

I can't speak to more expensive storages or collections. Most of collection are low cost banknotes however I still try to take care of each note. My low cost storage involves each note being put into hard currency sleeves from Unitrade and Associates (either bought from coin shows or from the manufacturer). Not super expensive. The sleeves are put into 3-pocket BCW currency pages from Amazon and organized in 3-ring binders. So far no issues and the notes seem to be well protected. If it was an expensive collection, I would probably do an extra level of security via dehumidifier etc. I don't store them in my basement due to humidity… although I have had some experience with a few paper banknotes left in a humid area and getting moldy. Luckily they were my extras so I wasn't too upset. 

Coming back to this, @pedrogil_19 , what were the individual sleeves made out of? Almost looks like the sleeves are reacting with the pages. What solution did you end up adopting? 

I'm curious as I use a similar setup with polypropylen sleeves and Lindner pages ('hard'-pvc, same as Leuchtturm and supposedly save - one hopes).

53th0s

Coming back to this, @pedrogil_19 , what were the individual sleeves made out of? Almost looks like the sleeves are reacting with the pages. What solution did you end up adopting? 

I'm curious as I use a similar setup with polypropylen sleeves and Lindner pages ('hard'-pvc, same as Leuchtturm and supposedly save - one hopes).

Do NOT use anything with P.V.C.!

Mylar holders are way better - as they are chemically neutral.

Aidan.

I’ll provide some insight based on my collection.

Most of my collection is stored in albums separated by continent or country if I have enough pieces to warrant a separate album. There are a few commemorative pieces and uncut sheets that I store separately in large clear sleeves on a shelf just tall enough to fit about 100 sheets of paper.

For my rarer and more expensive banknotes, I use exclusively Leuchtturm/Lighthouse Vario 1C, 2C, 3C, and 4C sheets in albums. These are made of archival-safe polyester. While expensive, they are tried and true for long term preservation and are rigid enough to protect notes against extreme bending that would cause damage in my experience. I typically reserve them for pieces worth around USD $15 and more, but there are exceptions for my favorite collections (notably Russian notes). These sheets are quite heavy and thick, especially compared to the thinner GuardHouse and BCW single sleeves you can find for less than $5 per 100 pack.

With my more common and inexpensive notes, I find that BCW LaserWeld 2, 3, and 4 pocket sheets work best. These are made of archival-safe polypropylene (PP). They are much less rigid than Vario sheets and only slightly more so than the flexible single sleeve counterparts produced by BCW and GuardHouse. These sleeves are much more affordable and are a good starting off point for a serious collection.

Both of the sheets I use fit nicely in the American standard 3 ring binders. Vario sheets have more than 3 holes on the binding side and can be used in a wider variety of non-American style binders without having to hole punch the binding side.

If you have any questions about anything else related to my collection organization and storage, don’t hesitate to ask.

Regards,

Daniel

I use these Storage Boutique thin plastic pouches:

Bank Note Protection Sleeves

And then I put that pouch in a hard sleeve (such as Uncle Paul or BCW). I have had to use “questionable” sleeves for large notes but I am hoping the Storage Boutique sleeves provide enough protection.

I do think there are risks of damage to a note when inserting it (without a pouch) into a sleeve, because the hard edge of the rigid sleeve can rub against the note if it has one of those security threads that causes the note to be wavy. Having it in the storage boutique pouch first means it can be inserted into the rigid sleeve without any rubbing on the note.

BCNumismatics

53th0s

Coming back to this, @pedrogil_19 , what were the individual sleeves made out of? Almost looks like the sleeves are reacting with the pages. What solution did you end up adopting? 

I'm curious as I use a similar setup with polypropylen sleeves and Lindner pages ('hard'-pvc, same as Leuchtturm and supposedly save - one hopes).

 

Do NOT use anything with P.V.C.!

 

Mylar holders are way better - as they are chemically neutral.

 

Aidan.

That probably doesn't leave too many options for album pages available in Europe - certainly outside A4 standard size. Even Leuchtturm - which seems to be well recommended usually - does hard-PVC for anything coins and some banknote pages. I like smaller page sizes such as Leuchtturm OPTIMA, which are indeed hard-PVC  =/

https://www.leuchtturm.de/media/cms/files/ed1te4023600Produktinfo%20Kunststoffh%C3%BCllen_Philatelie%20und%20Numismatik_D_2021-06.pdf

Hard PVC is very inert, has no problematic softeners (phtalates) and doesn't off-gas. But it's quite brittle so if you strain it too much it will easily break (in the case of thin sheets).

Online chat about this topic started around 2000 & I went to RCNA workshop on preserving one's collection 6 years later (2006). At this point & time, there were still many cheap Asian products floating around that one had to be aware of.  However, these were mostly sold from Asia on eBay & most collectors/dealers shunned them.  They were easy to ID b/c they were cheap or a knock off name of a valid brand name (see below) like Light-HOUZE, Lecturn, etc.

Our workshop expert was a ROM curator who was absolutely top notch in her field. She had extensive knowledge & experience with damaged woods, metals & paper artefacts from improper storage. She split her talk about 2 causes of such deterioration: humidity & improper storage media (bleached paper or vinyls). She talked for almost an hour on how the museum regulates archive temperatures & humidity.

When she polled us participants it was both amusing & a bit sad how many of us experienced problems. Most often the problems came from humid storage conditions or poor quality coin flips. Very few collectors had notes damaged by their PVC currency sleeves but I have seen many & usually the damage is a yellow tone/shade or darkening over the entire note (more on that later).  

A LOT of damaged coins came in those Commemorative (etc) presentation folders because the plastic/cardboard (etc) holders were NOT archival safe (nor vetted by any numismatic organization). This was a huge problem according to most of the coin collectors at the workshops. I shun such products so I had no idea.  To this day I advise collectors to REMOVE their coin/note OUT of the FOLDER & place it in a proper Mylar sleeve (or PVC-free flip).

For the most part, damaged notes from poor vinyl had become a thing of the past b/c most of us had already upgraded our sleeves a few years prior when we first heard about it (2000-2006). Most European & US manufacturers of banknote/collector sleeves had immediately improved their products 20 years ago.  There were still a few Asian “knock-off” sleeve & page producers but these were mainly the outliers. They were easily identified by where they were sold, no brand name & often cheap ($0.05 to $0.10/sleeve in bulk) whereas proper sleeves are typically ($.30 - $.65/sleeve) in bulk (more expensive). 

PVC-Free sleeves & page products came from the following brand names:

BCW 

Leuchtturm

Lighthouse

Guardhouse

Safeguard

Look for “Archival Safe” or “Museum Safe” on the label.

Mylar, Dupont & other co's produce Archival/Museum safe products too. They're pretty much the norm but beware of anything that comes from an eBay sale b/c there's a lot of older, Asian made unsafe stuff that sellers get rid of! 

ALSO beware of anything inherited! A friend of mine's father passed away & all his father's notes were stored in cheap PVC brittle plastic pages (all his father's notes were PVC damaged). I had never seen anything like it. 

If you have a PVC damaged, a note that was bleached, or altered chemically in any way, PUT IT IN A SEPARATE place. DO NOT store it with your good stuff b/c the chemicals can still leach into your good coins/notes!

The bottom line (of our 2006 workshop) was store your note in a semi-rigid sleeve and then place it in the currency page (do not store your note directly in a currency page pocket!)  Store your binder/collection in as dry as spot (in your residence) as possible. I am constantly recharging the dehumidifier (above) which is surprising (as I assumed my storage was pretty dry).   Always err on the side of caution if you have an item you suspect was chemically treated (smells off, etc).