I know direct sunlight is bad for cards but does indirect sun light cause damage too? For instance if the card is on display inside a room and natural light hits it but it’s not in direct sunlight?
All light will damage cards over time. The rate of decay is based on wavelength, intensity and exposure time.
I personally dont store my cards anywhere sunlight can get to them for extended periods of time
9 Likes
That makes sense.
How much is extended ammount of time? Are we talking weeks, months, years?
No-one can give you a reliable estimate on this without knowing the specifics. The answer could be “a few weeks” or “a few decades” depending on everything.
Indirect sunlight (as in daylight) carries very little radiation compared to direct sunlight. If direct sunlight is out the picture, fading is going to be a slow process.
1 Like
The point being, don’t store or display your cards where they might be exposed to light for a considerable time. There are options to put them in dark places with LED fixtures, or covers for display cases.
Granted, if you have UV protection on a case or slab like some Lucite ones I’ve had, then you could put them up for theoretically a few years without any issue. But now that I know more about UV protection, I don’t take that chance either.
1 Like
UV has a massive impact. The danger is because it happens so gradually you never really see it until you compare the colours before and after
Can you expand on what you mean by “now that I know more about UV protection”? Is there an issue with Uv protection offered by tints or special glass?
Sure! What I meant was I ultimately don’t know when light would start to damage the card in a uv protected lucite slab as everything breaks down eventually over time. So my cards have been unaffected for over 6 or 7 years of light exposure before I decided to keep them in a display where I could monitor the light situation. I didn’t want to take the chance of waiting 3 more years and start recognizing any signs of wear. For all I know, it could offer 50 year protection, but there’s nothing on their product label about that.
Just me being a little paranoid and figuring that if I can afford to protect them even longer, then I would. I don’t need to see them everyday. But when I do, why not make them look nice just for the moment in a nice display, you know?
Autographs and cards with white are definitely more prone to damage then others. There are examples of BGS/PSA 10 autos getting ruined by indirect light. If you are going to display something where it gets exposed to light often, Uv protection is definitely smart. Have always found it funny when you see slab displays/frames marketed to “protect your cards/ packs” when they don’t even offer UV protection.
Depends on the UV amount
Yes
What most people have in their homes are phosphor-coated LEDs and regular incandescent bulbs with barely any UV spectrum. CFL, which is illegal/becoming illegal many places now due to the mercury used for the gas discharge, emits a smidge more but we’re still talking next to nothing. No-one makes a point of putting any light source too close to the cards (exceptions exist, and coverings help), but that is a heat concern stemming from visible and/or thermal radiation (infrared spectrum) emission. Enough distance to where YOU don’t feel any difference, then add a meter or two, it doesn’t take many meters to nullify the effect.
Basically, you need to know a few basics on heaters, light, bulb types, glass types, plastics and humidity. Then you can display cards with impunity. Direct sunlight is a complete no, we’re still not there technologically where you can order up a glass cage dialed in to block UV, infrared and allow a customized percentage (due to heat) of visible spectrum to pass through, calibrated to the sun’s position.