Custom made film sleeve

[Peter Roberts]

I am talking with a sleeve maker to produce some custom made film sleeves to my odd size positive and negative films. Minimun quantity is 5,000 pcs which I think to be reasonable.

Now, it comes to the material which affects the price. I shall put my positive and negative films in this sleeve and directly view them by a light box. And this sleeve should protect films from scatch and have long term archival function. There are 3 materials quoted by the maker and they are:

DuPont polyester 3 mil thickness

PVC clear material 4 mil

Archivel Pro 2 mil

Which one is your suggestion to make the film sleeve to suit my purpose?

Thanks for your advice in advance.

[Antonio Corcuera]

Hi Peter,
Having some experience in photo archives, I can tell you PVC is your only pick if you are really concerned about archival issues. It is the most expensive of the three, but since you are having the sleeves custom made you might as well get the best.
cheers, Antonio

[Tom Westbrook]

See www.loc.gov/preserv/care/photo.html for info on archival storage materials. PVC is not recommended:

Commonly available PVC slide pages, easily identified by their strong plastic odor, should never be used because of their extreme chemical reactivity... Suitable plastic enclosures are uncoated polyester film, uncoated cellulose triacetate, polyethylene, and polypropylene.

I'd go with the Dupont Polyester. It's clearer than the Polypro and has a bit of stiffness that helps with handling of film. It's also going to be more expensive.

[Oren Grad]

NO!

Do NOT use PVC.

www.loc.gov/preserv/presfaq.html#5

www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-locale=en_US&pq-path=431

www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/membersGallery/archiving/pagesToAvoid.shtml

[tim atherton]

As a former technical specialist in a photo archives I'd suggest not going near PVC for film storage. I'd also suggest the 3mil Duont Polyester out of those choices.

[Bob Salomon]

Polypropylene is the material used by most manufacturers of archival pages in the USA.

[tim atherton]

One problem with Polypropylene is some manufacturers put on a surface coating to enable negatives to slip in and out more easily. But the coating is problematic from an archival point of view. The type of Polyester such as the Dupont mentioned, or in several different Dupont brand names such as Mylar, Melinex etc is by far the best (if usually the most expensive).

In addition, some Polypropylene also has additives to make the material "softer" and easier to handle. This also can also have a negative effect.

[Al Seyle]

I'm no chemist but if the film base itself is polyester, wouldn't that logically be the best choice?

[Paul Butzi]

I didn't like the polyester/mylar/melinex interleaving folders from Light Impressions. On some occasions, the sharp corners and edges scratched negatives.

I switched to the polypropylene interleaving folders, again from LI. At the time of my last order they were claiming no slip agents in them.

The polypropylene sure takes less of a static charge than the polyester. But the polyester is more clear.

[tim atherton]

Paul, the Pro-Line polypro stuff is pretty good. Last time I saw the testing by the CCI (which was a fgew years ago) this didn't have any weird stuff in or on it...

http://www.filmguard.com/pro-line/