How to take care of your toys

Please point me in the proper direction if this thread has been discussed before, I couldn't find it in my (quick) search of the Collecting Forums...

What's the best way to protect your toys? Will they yellow (or discolour) in time due no matter what you do?

In my (limited) research, it seems that the PVC chemical used in our Star Wars toy's worst enemy is direct sunlight. So it would be good to keep your collecting room in an environment fit for vampires. This much seems easy enough to abide by.

I also read somewhere that any foreign material that comes into contact with your toys also increases the risk of it discolouring. So in my case (since I open my toys and *try* to make dioramas for them), it seems that making figures stand on dry moss, plaster of paris, sand or other materials as such is also dangerous. Can anyone confirm or refute this? Or provide any advise / suggestions whatsoever?

Thanks!

 

Hmmm.... you pose some interesting questions. I, too, would like to know some of the answers. I've heard about the sunlight thing, but from what I know it mostly goes for carded figures (I'm sure in the long run sunlight affects loose figures as well). I never mix my loose figures with natural elements, such as grass, moss, or sand. All of them are kept in artificial surroundings that are figure-friendly. Most of my other loose figures are wrapped in plastic in a big shoebox until I find a place to display them, which probably won't be until I move out.

 

This is how I take care of my toys... all my carded figures are kept in Star Cases, that way I can pick them up when I want and look at them and not have to worry about the oils in my fingers affecting them, or about bending the card etc. My loose figures are all on stands and inside their own little individual acrylic cases. If I have more than 1 of each loose figure, then I am not too concerned with those figures and I usually just keep them in a box. I have closed the heating vent in the Star Wars room as heat can damage the toys. I also do not open the window as moisture/humidity can damage the toys especially those on cards or in boxes. This is why it is never a good idea to store your collection in a storage shed or the garage without first wrapping the boxes in saran wrap. The more valuable or breakable items are kept in a glass display case, or high up where visitors/children/pets cannot get to them.

 

Sun damage could really become a problem. It is good to leave your blinds closed during the day. I always
do unless I am doing work in the room and even then I use my many spotlights. I also bought a car window tint package for the room which cut down over 70% of the UV rays. Rubber maid bins and starcases are great but the problem is that when you are storing 500 plus
figures it could become a little exspensive and also
eat up alot of storage space.

 

This site has some info on the care of action figures. Some of the articles look pretty good.

 

My collection is in my basement, as is my bedroom

 

LAJ_FETT, that is a pretty nice site you found. Lemme try to summarize it to answer my own question:

What your figures are made of is a mixture of a polymer (or more than one) and a bunch of additives. Polymers are large molecules that are made up of many units of a smaller molecule, the monomer (polymers can have thousands and thousands of these units in a chain).

In comes photodegradation. The discoloration of figures is the effect of interactions of the material and UV-radiation (light, but the UV wavelength range is the problem-causing area).

Other than exposure to direct sunlight for a long period of time, other factors known to cause discoloration include humidity, contact with chemicals (such as glue or tape), and bright artificial light.

Certain figures are prone to yellowing more easily than other figures. The most important on this list are white action figures, like the vintage SnowTrooper (1978), Snow Job (1983) and Storm Shadow (v1, 1984). Something in the white plastic used on him make them very susceptible to sunlight damage.


No mention though in the articles about other foreign materials (such as dried moss, sand, plaster of paris, etc.) that might also cause figures to discolour. I'll just assume then that they are safe for my toys. =)

 

from personal experience, i'd say avoid heat. a good example i can think of is my old Jetfire from the Transformers series. he was in pretty good shape until i went to college and he got packed up and put in a storage shed. the shed had no climate control...it was basically one of those lawn mower type sheds. anyway, when i got him out a couple of years later, he was yellow. temperature is the only thing i can think of, since he was packed in a box.

 

Another bad thing about keeping things in a shed
or garage are the fumes and chemicals. Gas, exhaust
fumes and heat will kill paper and plastic, as well
as make them smell. Attics are just as bad, if not
worse. It can really get steamy up there. In my
experience plastic's worst enemy is heat, while
paper's is light (But both hate the other as well).

 

I really should keep my figures in a better environment. Right now I have a select few displayed on my wall. My room has two huge windows as well, and isn't in the basement (I hate that for two reasons, tornadoes, and sunlight.) I do alternate them though and the other ones are boxed in my closet. A few of my ships from the 90's are already getting yellow though (I took them out and played with them though, I was like 10).

Forcebewitya!

 

my tuskin warrior (sand person) was half buried upside down in the rose garden for a couple of years. its only slightly discolored half anyways. one of my nephews hid my at-at driver in the shower behind a massive soap shelf and the water changed the color and took off some markings. these are extreme cases thou

 

Funny you bring that up, DARTH2-D2. Me and my brother once burried two figures... the Darth Vader with removable dome and Luke in Stormtrooper disguise that came with the Death Star game. We put Vader in a Philedelphia Cream Cheese box (to emulate a coffin), and we mummified Luke in masking tape. We then burried them in a ditch outside our home. Several months later, we went back as planned. We found Vader in his cream cheese coffin, but no sign of Luke. This was several years ago, and to this day we have still not found Luke, albeit the fact that we've gone back a few times to look for him.

 

I make my friends wash their hands every time the use my Star Wars toys.

 

I wash my hands before I handle my Star Wars toys. Oh, and I don't let anyone "play" with them. Clean hands or not.

 

I wash my hands after I handle my SW toys because they are very dusty Yes I am notorious for not dusting often enough

 

I dust them using a soft rag, I cannot afford to dust them all with the compressed air. Furthermore, there can be some "build-up" from the compresses air can if it is kept in one spot too long.

And I have all my figs loose, most of them are on the black discs figure stands, I forget who makes them, now they are coming with bases, - about time.

 

I make my friends wash their hands every time the use my Star Wars toys.

I do that too man.

The thing is....I wash my hands before and after I touch them.

 

hmmm... lots of people seem to be washing their hands before they play with their stuff. I never thought the oils/dirt in our fingers could be that much of a threat to action figures...

Maybe I should do the same. =) ...Or even use latex gloves for uber protection? hehehe!

<p.s. - I can't seem to put "smileys" anymore on these boards. They're just replaced with a white dot like so: >

 

I think that heat must be a factor. I have a vintage 12" Stormtrooper who was always a little on the yellow side, even when I bought him. He's spent the last 3 years up in a box in my attic. I just took him out to examine him and now he looks like he's stained from nicotine he's so yellow

I guess I'll eventually have to just paint him or something because I don't think he'd be worth anything looking like he currently does. Also, I don't think there's any way to reverse that damage.

Or is there? ?

 

Also, I don't think there's any way to reverse that damage.

Or is there? ?

Unfortunately there isn't. The link that LAJ_FETT posted above goes into detail about the whole process of yellowing and how it isn't reversable.

I guess the best we can do is follow all the suggestions our fellow Collectors posted above and just enjoy our toys as much as we can. =)