1910 documents

[kharrington512]

My dad left me a small leather wallet with dozens and dozens of letters, receipts, checks, etc. from our family - all dated anywhere from 1909 to about 1925.

I'm trying to find the best way to preserve these.  The last time I had seen these, was about 23 years ago when my dad got them from his father.  They seem a bit less preserved since then - the leather wallet is much more dried out, etc.  I keep them in a glass-front china cabinet.  The documents and letters are all folded and in this leather pouch.

Is there a better way to preserve these? 

Thanks so much for your help!

[fancypants]

Welcome to the forum , kharrington512 .

Good question & concern !

First off , get those pesky paper items out of the leather !

If you'd type in the term "acid-free" in the 'Search' Tab (at the 'header' of this forum) , you'll see some of the postings about this same issue , regarding preservation of many types of items .

[Dean Perdue]

I'd use mylars with a acid free backer thats changed as needed for the paper and mylites work well for special sizes if you fold the excess behind the baker and hold it in place with a small peice of tape.
Should be able to find these at a comic store for very cheap but be sure it's the mentioned products and not the polypropalene plastic bags that are harmful for long term storage.

There might be some options as far as a custom archival frame goes if you want to shell out the $$$.

Helps to keep them in a cool low humidity environment away from light and especially sun light if practical and possible.

Hope these are still in decent shape for you and not brittle or browning.Paper is pretty tough to keep nice IMO.

[regularjoe2]

In addition to the above postings , I'dike to a a few cents worth too .

Double-sided paper items , such as letters & etc. can pose some problems , if it's displaying them (vs only preserving them) is the issue .

As was posted above , light can be very damaging to paper-printed/painted items & often folks will opt for framing them with UV-filtering plastics , rather than just plain old glass .
Flurescent light is a biggie for causing permanent damage to such items , so it pays to not use this type of lighting in display cabinets & in the vicinity of many sensitive items of this sort .

When it comes to adhesives , which are normally required when framing/mounting paper items , I use a fairly recently-invented type :

Product name -ZIG 'Memory System'
Product type - 2 -Way Glue , Xylene-free & acid-free
Manufacturer - KURETAKE CO. LTD , Japan

It's a unique product which can be applied as a 'wet bond' (adhere pieces while the glue is blue & wet) permanently , or as a 'dry bond' (adhere pieces after the glue is clear & dry) temporary/removable style .

This product can be found in art supply/framing supply specialty stores (or can be ordered) , and comes in a small & handy 'pen' size (7g) with an applicator tip , or in larger bottle sizes .
It's a little pricey , but really well worth it .

Geeze ... I sound like a sales rep .....
 

[kharrington512]

Thanks so much for all your help!  Nope, not displaying them at all, I just want to find a better way to preserve them...  Some of the documents are nearly falling apart.  And some of the letters are so interesting - well, they all are, but the letters are especially interesting, I'd hate for anything to happen to them.

Edited to add:

Okay - Thanks to y'all, I think I found it.   

http://www.archivalmethods.com

They have albums, etc. that will allow me to store all the little documents and letters safely and in a way that we can take them out and look at them without damaging them further.

Thank you, again, for all your help. I'd have never even known what to search for without you!