Dangers of screw-down holders

[Guest]

[kbmum]

I'm on the Beckett.com newsletter list.  For those of you unfamiliar with Beckett, the company grades trading cards for a fee.  This month's newsletter has a pretty scary article about damage to cards caused by screw-downs.  Here's the info:

The Faceless Dream

Right now, sitting in front of me, I have the face of a legend, or at least part of a face, beautifully preserved on plastic, where (I assume) it will stay until the end of time.

The problem is this legendary face doesn't belong there. This face was never meant to be displayed like this. This face very obviously belongs somewhere else.

This face is of the man, or The Man, who dominated the paint like no other. He is one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, a 12-time All-Star, took home an MVP, and has a couple rings. He was one half of the original "Twin Towers," and ended his superb career as the NBA all-time leader in blocked shots. I think even a 2-year-old could guess whose face this is, and while it is a face that inspires me, and should inspire the masses, it truly makes me sad to see this face here before me. The vast majority of the time I am glad to see him, but not like this, not like this.

Even worse, this face could easily be right where it belongs with a little bit of education and (at most) 20 seconds of effort.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? Better yet, will I ever get to the point and tell you what happened?

I can sum this all up in a few words...screw-down holder.

Sitting in front of me is a screw-down I will keep forever as an example, because it has a good chunk of Hakeem's face stuck to it. Not an actual chunk of human flesh or anything, but a chunk of face from an autographed patch card, numbered to 10, which I was briefly drooling over.

I say briefly because I grabbed a screwdriver, unscrewed the case, opened it, and saw the horror immediately. The holder was screwed down so tight that part of the card stuck to it, completely ruining what was a very nice card that otherwise would have received a very high grade.

Folks, we at BGS try hard to get the message out about these screw downs, but not everyone listens. These will NOT protect your cards better than a penny sleeve and oversized semi-rigid holder. As a matter of fact, I see more damage from screw downs than all other shipping methods combined.

Grab your nearest screw down with a card in it, hold it up to your ear and shake it. Do you hear a sound? That is your card moving around and slowly but surely becoming damaged on the corners and edges. If you don't hear anything you are a good candidate to have your heroes face, or autograph (shudder), permanently affixed to the holder once you open it.

Think you have it beat since you actually have the card in a penny sleeve inside the screw down? *SIGH* Think again, please...

Another "bonus" from shipping your cards to us the way we recommend is that your card is handled less before it gets graded. Each card sent to us is verified and, if not already, placed into a penny sleeve and semi-rigid holder. Sure, we are indeed very good at this, and we are always extremely careful, but things can happen to anyone at anytime, and you will never come up snake-eyes if you don't roll the dice.

Look, we do this all day, every day and we assure you that our recommendations are (have been proven to be) the safest way to ship your cards to us. Of course, nothing is ever 100 percent, and shipping damage can happen no matter how you send your cards, but please, PLEASE, don't let what happened to The Dream ever happen again, he deserved a better fate.

Guide to Packing Cards

    * Place each card in a "penny" or "soft" sleeve.
    * Slip the sleeve into an "oversized semi-rigid" card holder.
    * Sandwich up to 25 holders between two pieces of cardboard and tape the cardboard securely to make a small "package."
    * These "packages" should then be placed into a box with sufficient packing material to keep them stationary.
    * Send to BGS.

- Eric Jahnke, BGS Grading

This has me rethinking the way I've stored my more valuable cards.

[HPfamily]

I'll probably be shot down for this (well, maybe not now)
but I actually hate screw downs. I have since I first had
one sent to me.
But this is horrible to hear something like this! 

[LikORish-Spider]

* Send to BGS.

It's not like these guys are trying to sell anything, right?

[kbmum]

BGS is a grading service and its newsletter is sent only to those people who sign up for it (like me ).  They don't sell trading card supplies.  The problem they've been having is that people are shipping cards to them in screw-downs, thinking that the cards are well-protected, when in fact the holders are damaging the cards.  BGS is just telling those people how to properly pack and ship the cards they want the service to grade.   I quoted the entire article, not to sell BGS services (I've yet to use them, although I'm considering it for a few sport cards), but to make people here aware that screw-downs might not be the best way to store or ship cards.  There are quite a few eBay sellers who would benefit from packing cards the way that BGS suggests.

I just had a heck of a scare.  I unscrewed the holder for my POA Sirius auto (which is special to me because it's the best card I've ever pulled).  The top came off fine, but the bottom of the card was stuck to the holder!   I was nearly in a panic.  Fortunately, I was able to gently remove the card without any damage.  I had the same problem with two POAU inserts, one from GOFU, and one one from MM.  I was surprised that the MM card stuck on the back, since the card stock for that set doesn't have a glossy coating.  I'm definitely removing the rest of the cards that are in screw-downs, as soon as I buy some extra thick toploaders and extra thick sleeves.

[tialessa]

I hate hate hate hate screwdowns & remove all cards that come in them...

I lean towards snap tite holders for the majority of my "good" cards.

[kbmum]

Wouldn't snap tites have the same problems?  Either the cards will move around inside or they'll be smooshed up against the plastic.

[tialessa]

There's some room in the snap tites unlike the screwdowns so the cards aren't pressed down towards one side or another.

As far as damage to the corners the card might have less than a millimeter room on each of the four sides so it's not like they're shaken.

[sfmuggle]

I have used both screw down and snap tite holders extensively with both old Magic the Gathering and sports cards & had problems with both.  The screw downs (over time) places so much pressure that a card may stick to surfaces (either to the penny sleeve or to the lucite).  I had several instances where, unbeknownst to me at the time, dust or other small particles made it on to the card surface while screwing down.  with the pressure of the screwdown (and I never really tightened it too much) it left an indentation on the cards and well it's no longer mint/NM.

I had less problems with the snap tites but, as tialessa pointed out, there is still room at the corners/edges (depending on the type you buy), which, for me, damaged card corners (to varying degrees) during transport.

Nowadays, I put them individually in acid free penny sleeves and into a top-loader, and then into a team bag.

[De Orc]

I hate screw downs I have a couple of cards in them that I bought that way and admit I am scared to even try to remove them in case of damage.

[jfer21]

Looks like I now have to move all my good stuff back to sleeves/snap-tites (after I finally moved most of my stuff to screwdown). 

So since screwdowns are evil, where does the BGS stand on the ones with magnets instead of screws?

Does this mean it is just better to leave everything in acid free penny sleeves and such?

[kbmum]

I couldn't find any more info other than what was in the article.  I think the most important point is that any holder, even the magnetic ones, should not fit so tightly that both the front and back of the card is pressed between the halves of the holder.  The screw-down I used for the auto was meant for thin cards, yet it still stuck.

If a card is too thick to fit easily into a 9-pocket page, then there are a couple of options.  It can be placed in a sleeve (there are sleeves for regular and extra thick cards), which will protect the corners and edges, and put in 9-pocket pages.  It can also be in a sleeve, toploader, team bag (optional, but I think the bag prevents the card from falling out of the toploader), and then placed in a four-pocket page.  If you're comfortable with snap-tites, then you can use those in place of the toploader.  I've heard of people who never use albums, so the cards are properly protected and stored in a box.

[Bitsy]

That is scary.

I don't like the screw-down cases at all. The first one came to me with a CATCF chocolate bar prop card and I had one heck of a time even getting it open. I finally had to break the thing just to get the card out. 

The magnet closures and the snap cases are my favorites--they are simple and I don't find that they close too tightly.

Cindy--I can only imagine how panicked you were over Sirius! Heck, I felt a bit panicky reading your post, hoping it was alright.
I'm soooooooo glad it is safe and sound.