Toss original inner sleeves because of acidic paper?

DesertTwang

Active Member
There appears to be a wide-spread practice of keeping original inner sleeves only if they're printed with lyrics, ads etc. that provide historical context to the record. Many people toss original inner sleeves as long as they're the plain white paper kind, and I have been doing the same. All my records go into new polyethylene sleeves, and if I keep the original, I insert it into the cover, whereas the actual record goes outside of the cover before both are stored in PE outer sleeves.

So far, so good. Lately, though, I've gotten into the habit of keeping any inner sleeve regardless of whether it's plain or printed, unless it's badly ripped or super dirty. I figure it can't hurt hanging on to the inner sleeve, since it was issued with the record at the time.

However, knowing that most paper sleeves are made from acidic paper, which is why they yellow over time, I've been wondering if this is a bad idea because keeping the acidic paper of the inner sleeve in contact with the cover may contribute or accelerate the aging and deterioration of the cover?

Any thoughts on this?
 
Unless the cover is made from archival, cotton or 'rag' pulp then it's likely got it's own acid that will degrade it, so I don't think keeping the original, wood pulp, based paper inner is gonna make it noticeably worse.
Just my 2cents mind, so YMMV;)
 
I always look at the inner sleeve - a reasonable poly-lined sleeve will be kept. Inner sleeves that are actually a paper lyric sheet and/or part of the artwork are not used - keep them, of course, but use my preferred inner sleeves - Diskeeper's equivalent (or close to it ! ) of MoFi inner sleeves. Basic crappy paper inner sleeves or original sleeves with no artwork or lyrics are tossed and again, Diskeeper used instead.


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If you want to replace the sleeves, go ahead. It can't hurt the records, though it can eat up your money, admittedly slowly since they aren't that expensive. I am not a fan of non paper sleeves - they seem to encourage static.
But here is my question: after decades in a non archival sleeve, wouldn't anything that acid could do have already done it? Aren't you spending money to bar the door after the horses have left? Vinyl is pretty durable and relatively inert. The acid in paper is a threat to the paper itself, but probably a negligible factor in the longevity of vinyl. I'd be more worried about static pops. But I live in New England, and during the winter, the air is quite dry, which encourages static. In Florida, mildew might be more of an issue.
 
I use the MOFI sleeves because they are soft plastic (and somewhat anti-static). I too don't care about acidic levels of the paper sleeves either, I just don't like paper sleeves, especially the ones with the large center hole. I have seen the edge of this hole cause damage to the grooves.
 
I've used MOFI Inner Sleeves, and Japanese Resealable Sleeves for at least 20 years, switching out all, but as others do I'll keep important Inners with Lyrics-etc.

Disaster struck about 3 weeks ago, a fraction of my record collection (100 LPs) was subject to water damage as they were all in climate controlled storage and the place flooded out. They were all boxed, and of course the boxes that got wet at the bottoms probably acted like sponges.

I got there and discovered this 3 days after the fact, was called by the storage company about the incident

Even though 99% were in Japanese Outer Sleeves, the water managed to creep in at the bottom-resealable flap area.

While some jackets sustained some bad damage, and many were expensive Deccas, MOFI's, EMI's, and Duetsche Grammaphon, Beatles, Doors, Stones, etc, many collected from the 60's and 70's, the MOFI Inner Sleeves totally protected the records from water damage.

Of course heartbroken, but I'm not a collector to buy-sell. What was most important was that the records themselves sustained no damage.

I in fact just finished yesterday, after complete drying, they were inspected, the jackets repaired best I could do, and replaced all outer sleeves again.

This damage was just the tip of the iceberg, when McIntosh Preamp, and Bryston Monoblock Amp Boxes, and my VPI 16.5 RCM's box were also water damaged. Luckily, that equipment was all wrapped in plastic as well, only need to acquire some new outer boxes for those pieces of equipment
 
I treat records like the consumer-use items I see them as. I use them, don't worry particularly about condition of jacket and whatnot. I figure that when I'm gone, it's very unlikely that someone will care about them. Like most of the records owned by posters here, they'll end up in the landfill, so why not just use them and love them? I don't collect records, I'm listening to music.
 
I toss the original inner sleeve if it's torn, unless it's a lyric or photo sheet from the album. I use new poly-lined white paper sleeves on all of my records. Any other inner sleeves that are not torn, I save and drop them off at the local used record store for re-use by the store.
 
I've been collecting records for over 50 years and haven't noticed any harm from using the original inner sleeves. I just don't get the major concern on this subject, and the time and money involved in swapping out the inner sleeves of 10,000 records doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe if I was going to live another 100 years I would consider it. Maybe.
 
As a victim of a flood I appreciate vinyl sleeves. Lots of my records were saved by them. The ones without were not played again for 20 years, that is when I bought a RCM.
 
But you can get mold and mildew on the vinyl if there is moisture. I don't know if paper or plastic is more likely to encourage mold and mildew - perhaps each encourage different species.
 
Notable sleeves to not keep your records in:

London/Decca UK polylined pre 1975 (in 1975, they switched to rice paper inner lining)
RCA Red Seal 1960's sleeves
1960's Angel sleeves

All these are well known for reacting with the vinyl and leaving permanent scars which can't be cleaned.
 
I'm old enough to remember new records coming with no inner sleeve at all.

I have no problem using original paper sleeves and as mentioned, only chuck them if they're mangled. Any sleeve is better than no sleeve and when flipping through used records, if there's one I want without an inner sleeve, I flip through the others until I find something with a plain sleeve to use for the one I'm going to buy.
 
There appears to be a wide-spread practice of keeping original inner sleeves only if they're printed with lyrics, ads etc. that provide historical context to the record. Many people toss original inner sleeves as long as they're the plain white paper kind, and I have been doing the same. All my records go into new polyethylene sleeves, and if I keep the original, I insert it into the cover, whereas the actual record goes outside of the cover before both are stored in PE outer sleeves.

So far, so good. Lately, though, I've gotten into the habit of keeping any inner sleeve regardless of whether it's plain or printed, unless it's badly ripped or super dirty. I figure it can't hurt hanging on to the inner sleeve, since it was issued with the record at the time.

However, knowing that most paper sleeves are made from acidic paper, which is why they yellow over time, I've been wondering if this is a bad idea because keeping the acidic paper of the inner sleeve in contact with the cover may contribute or accelerate the aging and deterioration of the cover?

Any thoughts on this?
My thought is this. If the record is 30+ years old and is in really good shape there is nothing wrong with the inner sleeve. In fact the record is in good shape because of the inner sleeve not despite it. I take one of those scentless dusting pads and dust out the inside of the sleeve to make sure no dust is there. I clean the record in my US cleaner and return it to the original sleeve. Having said that, inner sleeves are relatively cheep but we don't know for sure how they will perform over a 30 year period. We do however see good evidence that the original sleeve has preserved a record over all those years so why change to an unknown.
 
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