Best way to temporarily store medals

[Wessel Gordon]

We are in the process of having the house repaired in preparation for a move so there's a lot of people in and out the whole time. Obviously I don't want my medal collection to attract attention from sticky fingers so I was wondering what the best way was to store them for at least a few weeks. Currently they are individually stored in those plastic coin bags you used to get years ago from banks but I'm sure that's not the best solution.

Any suggestions are very welcome.

 

[paul wood]

I find that albums with sleeves of medal flips are good. Each album will hold 40-50 medals. I don't recommended them as a permanent solution a nice early 19th century collector's cabinet is the best permanent home but with albums they are portable and easily stored.

Paul 

[Wessel Gordon]

Paul Wood,

Thanks. I'm just afraid of some weird chemical interaction between the metal and the plastic doing damage to the medal itself. I doubt I would find a 19th century cabinet but my one brother in law is good with woodwork and he's willing to help out with building shadowboxes. Would also be easier to explain to him what I want instead of a complete stranger.

Since I have medals of three countries the plan is to display each country's medal in a separate box otherwise one box might look overcrowded and confusing.

But the shadowboxes is still far in the future since we have to settle in the new house first and I have to then figure out where the best spot would be to put the boxes.

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Wessel Gordon

[paul wood]

Yes the old flips used to create green grunge like toad's excrement on the medals (I used to kèep toads as pets in my youth so i do know how true the comparison is).  Acid free flips are now available and the problem ceases to exist

Atb

Paul

 

 

[Wessel Gordon]

I don't have albums with medal slips...would a plain piece of unprinted A4 paper wrapped around each medal help?

[paul wood]

Can't see any harm in that. Manilla envelopes also create no environmental issues.

Bloody predictive text who ever created it should  be castrated with an infected rusty razor blades. Vanilla envelope cant see any balm. God makes you suicidal.

Paul

[peter monahan]

Just don't use paper towelling, either to polish or wrap them in, as it's rotten with sulphur and will tarnish the medals quick as be damned.

[Wessel Gordon]

Thanks Paul and Peter.

i was thinking a normal A4 sheet of paper you use for printers etc. Just take a clean page and wrap the medal inside it. Lot of paperwork, lol, but if it helps keep my collection safe I'm happy.

[Gunner 1]

If I were using paper to wrap around medals I would want to make it sure it is acid free, although for short periods of time it probably won't cause any harm.

[Wessel Gordon]

Not sure how long I'll have to store them, to be honest.

Maybe the best solution is to not wrap them in anything and store them somewhere that I'm fairly sure somebody won't be snooping around. But obviously with strangers in and out showing them off out in the open isn't an option.

 

[Wessel Gordon]

Would plain envelopes work to store the medals?

The advantage I see in using envelopes is that I can write the name/s of the medals inside on it first, slip the medal in and seal it to protect against dust etc.

I recently received a package from the US of ribbons and the box was filled with crumpled papers which I ignored because they were obviously just there to stop the contents jumping around. Luckily my sixth sense told me to check that I received all the items and it turned out I ordered a miniature medal with the same order so I had to retrieve the discarded box from the trash and open each piece of paper until I found the medal. Lesson learnt: in future open every scrap of paper over 1 mm in diameter to check for hidden contents.

 

[paul wood]

Gordon, should be absolutely fine preferably acid free but for up to year should be no problem. If acid free ok for the duration

 Essex  museum used to keep their medals in Basildon Bond while envelopes apart from mild tarnishing there was no problem and some had been thus stored since 1951, even before I existed and that is prehistory.

ATB

Paul

[Wessel Gordon]

Paul,

1951 was 20 years before I was born so that's prehistory for me too. 

The move will probably happen before the end of the year so we're talking maximum 4-5 months. Something that is not military related (so I'd rather not divulge the details) happened in our neighborhood today and it just convinced me we need to move out of here faster than Hitler's famous Blitzkrieg at the beginning of World War 2.

[paul wood]

Rabid ostriches or epileptic wildebeest? Major problem in the ZAR

Paul

[Wessel Gordon]

Paul Wood,

Nothing that exotic that made me want to move faster.

New neighbors have 4 dogs: Two Rottweilers, Daschund and a Maltese. The Rottweilers and Daschund ripped the Maltese apart with the whole neighborhood's dogs automatically going insane. The neighbor's yards are two yards wide and the house are on the far side from ours so I had to scream like a banshee for them to intervene...8-9 year old girl get sent out first, the mom comes sauntering out like she's on holiday, leans on a tree stump and lazily puts her shoes on and walks slowly towards the already dead Maltese. When I asked why the £"% they didn't realize what's going on the nonchalant answer was ''We didn't hear anything'' but all the dogs in at least a 5 house radius heard it. That happened on Wednesday, we went out of town yesterday and lo and behold there's not a single dog left on the neighbor's yard. When I told them the Maltese are already dead they looked at me like I'm talking a foreign language and with an attitude that radiates with ''so what?''

Let's just say I purposefully made some very unneighborly remarks loud enough for them to hear.

Edit: so to answer your question: people with a extreme case of ''don't give a £"%^'' about animals and what's happening right under their noses.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Wessel Gordon

[Wessel Gordon]

Sorry for that un-military rant but some things just manage to push my ''go to inter-continental ballistic missile mode'' button.

To get back to the topic in hand: I purchased wage envelopes (made from the same kind of paper of those old brown paper bags you used to get) and adapted the various fields pre-printed on it to indicate which medal is inside etc and put the medal inside for the duration. However I did not seal the envelopes as I'm not sure if there's any acid in the glue-strip so I kept the covering on over the glue-strip.

 

[Wessel Gordon]

I've had another idea to better preserve my medals while in temporary storage but I need some advice from our more experienced members. With advice I include being told it's a good/bad idea or being asked bluntly if i'm out of my mind so have a go at it with honest opinions please.

As per the previous post my collection currently reside in brown wage envelopes but with a recent purchase some of the medals was sent to me in medal wallets which I simply slipped (with the medal inside the wallet) into an appropriately marked envelope. My thinking is that the medal wallet adds another layer of protection against corrosion and direct sunlight. Is this a workable approach or should I switch to either just the envelopes or medal wallets?

As I said any opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Great Dane]

I can't tell you which is the most optimal method, but when my collection was put into 9 months storage and - after that - shipped across the pond, this is what I did:

I had a pile of acid-free tissue paper lying around, so wrapped each object in a cut piece (letter/A4 size). Placed the wrapped objects in cardboard boxes (a little bigger than shoeboxes) and finally placed some bubble-wrap on the top to keep stuff in place before closing the lid. Then taped the lid to the box to keep it closed (and to indicate if it had been tampered with).

Obviously that wouldn't stop things from moving around inside if someone shook a box violently, but for normal handling I assumed it would be fine. And even if stuff moved around inside, the objects would still be wrapped individually and not hit each other directly.

[Wessel Gordon]

Great Dane,

Thanks for the reply.

Even if I have both the full-sized and miniature of a particular medal I placed each in a separate envelope to avoid them bumping and scratching each other. I simply marked the envelope ''F'' for full size and ''M'' for miniature so if I'm in a hurry I don't have to prod the envelope to feel which one of the set is in that particular envelope. So I don't have any envelope where I placed both medals of a set by accident in the same envelope. It's a tedious job to get done with close to 100 medals and a bit costly envelope/ink wise but a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing a damaged and unobtainable medal.

Since I have medals of 3 different countries I placed each country's envelopes in a separate box and once I find bigger boxes the current boxes are going into the bigger boxes with bubble wrap or bunched-up newspapers to secure them. 

We are still a long way from moving and I'm the only one that ever touches the boxes (even our regular housekeeper cleans in a wide circle around the boxes or she's got some explaining to do...sounds harsh but I guess all serious collectors are worse than protective mothers about their collections) so I'm not too worried about someone dropping the boxes by accident.

 

 

 

[2dresq]

I have been looking into this very thing as well.    These have caught my eye.  I am considering this as a solution.  Might want to check it out.    Seems also like a good way for sellers and militaria shows to transport wares to and from events. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Look-Sammelkoffer-Gigant-RED-MIX-Militaria-10-Tableaus-102-Facher-fur-Orden/274305694519?_trksid=p2485497.m4902.l9144

Best Regards,
JustinG