Here's a thread to discuss water damaged cards: saving wet cards, restoring existing water damage, and non-obvious ways to avoid water damage. Please contribute your experiences and discuss any of the ideas I've proposed.
I recently had 800 Magic cards mailed to me, packaged in a box of five zip lock bags holding about 150 cards each. The cards in one zip lock bag were damp, but still perfectly straight; they hadn't soaked up the moisture. This leads to my first point:
Warning about mailing cards:
Don't seal cards in air tight packaging. Packages may travel through many different temperatures and climates, causing condensation to form in a sealed bag. Always punch some small holes in a bag containing cards to allow this moisture to escape.
Back to my recent experience, I had damp yet undamaged cards in my hands and knew I had to act quickly to save them. I spread them out on my bed, an uneven and absorbent surface allowing them to dry. This was a bad idea since many of them curled, so badly that some even creased. This leads to my next point:
Ideas for saving wet cards: What I wish I'd done.
- Put a wet card in a book with smooth pages and sturdy paper (not newsprint where the water may cause the page's ink to bleed). Close the book and put weight on top of it. The book will soak up the water while keeping the card flat so it doesn't curl. Every 10 minutes or so, move the card further into the book to a dry set of pages, close the book, and put the weight back on top of it.
- For a whole stack of wet cards, put them in a hinged plastic 50 or 100 card case. Put absorbent material between each card, such as smooth paper (but not tissue paper which breaks down easily, or paper towels which have texture that will dig into the cards). Add dry cards as necessary to ensure the case is totally full, removing all space for cards to warp. Rubber band the case shut and apply pressure on top of it. Every 10 minutes or so, open the case, replace the wet absorbent material with dry material, seal the case, and reapply the weight.
What NOT to do to wet cards:
- Don't try to quickly dry wet cards, such as with a hair dryer or dehumidifier. This is too rapid and will cause them to curl.
- Don't spread the cards out on a flat surface. This will dry them slowly which is good, but will allow them to curl since nothing is keeping them flat.
- When cards are stuck together, don't try to pull them apart. This will cause ink from one card to stick to another. Let them dry first and they'll easily come apart without ink transfer.
Now for the last part of my recent wet card experience. I now have about 40 cards from Unlimited and Revised which are warped from water, but not so bad that they're creased. I put them in 9-pocket binder pages, one card per page, until I figure out how to flatten them.
Ideas for restoring water damaged cards:
- Put cards in penny sleeves or in 9-pocket binder pages, one per sleeve or pocket. Put the sleeves inside a book, close the book, and put weight on it. Or for pages, put the pages between two smooth surfaces (sturdy glass or plastic) to prevent texture from digging into the cards, and put weight onto that surface.
- Iron the cards: "Put them under a couple layers of newpaper and iron them slowly with a decent amount of pressure. DO NOT USE STEAM!"
What are your suggestions for saving wet cards, restoring water damaged cards, and avoiding water damage? Please share any real world experience with your methods, or correct what I've mentioned above. Thanks, and my warped Sol Rings, Mana Vaults and Basalt Monoliths thank you too.
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Reflecting Pool: You know, technically, I *CAN* make any color of mana.
Exotic Orchard: Prove it. Do it right now.
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Reflecting Pool:
I lost most of my collection in a basement flood last year during an extended break from Magic, and unfortunately most the cards were unsleeved in the card boxes that come with Fat Packs these days. So, all my cards were stuck together and many were moldy and not salvageable.
For the ones that I managed to save, it was summer and the air was very dry so I left them on the front porch on a table for a couple days, under a few heavy dictionaries to try to flatten and dry them out. This helped a quite a bit and I was even able to save some foils this way. They still have a bit of a curl to them but sleeved and in a deck you can't really see a noticeable difference from the rest of the deck.
Don't seal cards in air tight packaging. Packages may travel through many different temperatures and climates, causing condensation to form in a sealed bag. Always punch some small holes in a bag containing cards to allow this moisture to escape.
I'm not a scientist by any means, but as I understand it, condensation only pulls moisture out of the air, not actually forming it, so the only way it can collect on the inside of the bag is if there is already moisture in it.
It doesn't seem like the temperature change should make a difference, since the cards, being paper, should absorb the moisture anyway, and if the air is mostly dry when you seal the package, poking holes would only allow extra moisture IN.
I'm not a scientist by any means, but as I understand it, condensation only pulls moisture out of the air, not actually forming it, so the only way it can collect on the inside of the bag is if there is already moisture in it.
It doesn't seem like the temperature change should make a difference, since the cards, being paper, should absorb the moisture anyway, and if the air is mostly dry when you seal the package, poking holes would only allow extra moisture IN.
If the cards were packed in a warm, humid environment, and put in a sealed bag, then travelled to a colder climate, condensation would form inside the bag and get on the cards.
I just had this happen with Gatorade. My cards are all in Dragon Shield sleeves. I tried to pull them out of sleeves, and it just damaged the cards. Do I leave them in the sleeves while they dry?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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"Cut it down, bury it in the snow, put it to the torch. The rose will still bloom again."
I just had this happen with Gatorade. My cards are all in Dragon Shield sleeves. I tried to pull them out of sleeves, and it just damaged the cards. Do I leave them in the sleeves while they dry?
Ouch... All that salt and sugar is going to complicate things.
It's case by case unfortunately. I'll give you my plans of attack, but please note most are untested.
Unfortunately, all of my plans assume strictly water. None plan for "dirty" water like soda or Gatoraide except for a questionable form of abuse to the party responsible for the accident.
You can take what you want out of my suggestions.
Before you try to use any recovery technique, test the technique first on the cheap cards such as basic lands. If you make a mistake in extraction, you're out a few pennies instead of dollars.
I would not leave them in the sleeves wet. This can promote mold growth which will make the cards completely unrecoverable. They won't dry very well in the sleeves due to inability for air to reach into the sleeve.
Double sleeves will protect the card but may cause problems with extraction. If the fluid is in the outer sleeve only. You can use white paper cut into strips of desired size to slide between the sleeves to soak up as much of the fluid as possible. Don't use towels or tissue they'll fall apart. Note heavy white paper used for printers or copiers is agonizingly slow. I suspect it's due to coatings they sometimes use. I never considered trying it on single sleeves.
I have used an X-Acto blade to slit one or two sides to remove cards (I did not do this because of moisture) from sleeves. You have to be very very careful not to hit the card. Some people might have the patience doing it free hand or you might want to use a ruler to guide the blade. There does appear to be craft tools on Amazon suited to the task but I never tried them and you don't have time for it. Point is, doing so allows you to peel back the sleeves rather than sliding the card out.
Once you extract the cards, you want them dried and flat. This is where I expect the sugar might work against you. Once it dries, you'll be left with a sticky mess which could cause the cards to stick to the paper. Clear off your dining room table (clean it of course). Lay out a layer of white printer paper without overlap. Lay the unsleeved cards out, another layer of paper on top. The pile every heavy book in your house on top. Don't use books with textured or leather bindings. Do not use plastic wrap as a barrier. Let the books compress the cards and the paper soak up the moisture. Patience is a virtue here. Change and discard the paper as necessary. I did this for wet Pokémon cards and it worked wonders.
Inserting cards inside the book is also valid but I find it's a bit harder to control positioning and the spine might not be true.
Magic cards have a coating which makes them resistant to water. It's the edges that are susceptible or scratches that pierce the coating. Once the delamination process starts, it's just rapid decay after that. However, with a lightly moistened (water, no chemicals) Q-tip, you can very carefully wipe off the sugars from the spill. Just avoid the edges. The press the cards on the flat surface you prepared.
I recently had 800 Magic cards mailed to me, packaged in a box of five zip lock bags holding about 150 cards each. The cards in one zip lock bag were damp, but still perfectly straight; they hadn't soaked up the moisture. This leads to my first point:
Warning about mailing cards:
Don't seal cards in air tight packaging. Packages may travel through many different temperatures and climates, causing condensation to form in a sealed bag. Always punch some small holes in a bag containing cards to allow this moisture to escape.
Back to my recent experience, I had damp yet undamaged cards in my hands and knew I had to act quickly to save them. I spread them out on my bed, an uneven and absorbent surface allowing them to dry. This was a bad idea since many of them curled, so badly that some even creased. This leads to my next point:
Ideas for saving wet cards: What I wish I'd done.
- Put a wet card in a book with smooth pages and sturdy paper (not newsprint where the water may cause the page's ink to bleed). Close the book and put weight on top of it. The book will soak up the water while keeping the card flat so it doesn't curl. Every 10 minutes or so, move the card further into the book to a dry set of pages, close the book, and put the weight back on top of it.
- For a whole stack of wet cards, put them in a hinged plastic 50 or 100 card case. Put absorbent material between each card, such as smooth paper (but not tissue paper which breaks down easily, or paper towels which have texture that will dig into the cards). Add dry cards as necessary to ensure the case is totally full, removing all space for cards to warp. Rubber band the case shut and apply pressure on top of it. Every 10 minutes or so, open the case, replace the wet absorbent material with dry material, seal the case, and reapply the weight.
What NOT to do to wet cards:
- Don't try to quickly dry wet cards, such as with a hair dryer or dehumidifier. This is too rapid and will cause them to curl.
- Don't spread the cards out on a flat surface. This will dry them slowly which is good, but will allow them to curl since nothing is keeping them flat.
- When cards are stuck together, don't try to pull them apart. This will cause ink from one card to stick to another. Let them dry first and they'll easily come apart without ink transfer.
Now for the last part of my recent wet card experience. I now have about 40 cards from Unlimited and Revised which are warped from water, but not so bad that they're creased. I put them in 9-pocket binder pages, one card per page, until I figure out how to flatten them.
Ideas for restoring water damaged cards:
- Put cards in penny sleeves or in 9-pocket binder pages, one per sleeve or pocket. Put the sleeves inside a book, close the book, and put weight on it. Or for pages, put the pages between two smooth surfaces (sturdy glass or plastic) to prevent texture from digging into the cards, and put weight onto that surface.
- Iron the cards: "Put them under a couple layers of newpaper and iron them slowly with a decent amount of pressure. DO NOT USE STEAM!"
What are your suggestions for saving wet cards, restoring water damaged cards, and avoiding water damage? Please share any real world experience with your methods, or correct what I've mentioned above. Thanks, and my warped Sol Rings, Mana Vaults and Basalt Monoliths thank you too.
FireFox31
Validating Netdecks and Land Smackdown
For the ones that I managed to save, it was summer and the air was very dry so I left them on the front porch on a table for a couple days, under a few heavy dictionaries to try to flatten and dry them out. This helped a quite a bit and I was even able to save some foils this way. They still have a bit of a curl to them but sleeved and in a deck you can't really see a noticeable difference from the rest of the deck.
(Also known as Xenphire)
I'm not a scientist by any means, but as I understand it, condensation only pulls moisture out of the air, not actually forming it, so the only way it can collect on the inside of the bag is if there is already moisture in it.
It doesn't seem like the temperature change should make a difference, since the cards, being paper, should absorb the moisture anyway, and if the air is mostly dry when you seal the package, poking holes would only allow extra moisture IN.
If the cards were packed in a warm, humid environment, and put in a sealed bag, then travelled to a colder climate, condensation would form inside the bag and get on the cards.
RWArchangel Avacyn, GWNazahn, Revered Bladesmith, RKari Zev, Skyship Raider (French Duel)
Ouch... All that salt and sugar is going to complicate things.
It's case by case unfortunately. I'll give you my plans of attack, but please note most are untested.
Unfortunately, all of my plans assume strictly water. None plan for "dirty" water like soda or Gatoraide except for a questionable form of abuse to the party responsible for the accident.
You can take what you want out of my suggestions.
Before you try to use any recovery technique, test the technique first on the cheap cards such as basic lands. If you make a mistake in extraction, you're out a few pennies instead of dollars.
I would not leave them in the sleeves wet. This can promote mold growth which will make the cards completely unrecoverable. They won't dry very well in the sleeves due to inability for air to reach into the sleeve.
Double sleeves will protect the card but may cause problems with extraction. If the fluid is in the outer sleeve only. You can use white paper cut into strips of desired size to slide between the sleeves to soak up as much of the fluid as possible. Don't use towels or tissue they'll fall apart. Note heavy white paper used for printers or copiers is agonizingly slow. I suspect it's due to coatings they sometimes use. I never considered trying it on single sleeves.
I have used an X-Acto blade to slit one or two sides to remove cards (I did not do this because of moisture) from sleeves. You have to be very very careful not to hit the card. Some people might have the patience doing it free hand or you might want to use a ruler to guide the blade. There does appear to be craft tools on Amazon suited to the task but I never tried them and you don't have time for it. Point is, doing so allows you to peel back the sleeves rather than sliding the card out.
Once you extract the cards, you want them dried and flat. This is where I expect the sugar might work against you. Once it dries, you'll be left with a sticky mess which could cause the cards to stick to the paper. Clear off your dining room table (clean it of course). Lay out a layer of white printer paper without overlap. Lay the unsleeved cards out, another layer of paper on top. The pile every heavy book in your house on top. Don't use books with textured or leather bindings. Do not use plastic wrap as a barrier. Let the books compress the cards and the paper soak up the moisture. Patience is a virtue here. Change and discard the paper as necessary. I did this for wet Pokémon cards and it worked wonders.
Inserting cards inside the book is also valid but I find it's a bit harder to control positioning and the spine might not be true.
Magic cards have a coating which makes them resistant to water. It's the edges that are susceptible or scratches that pierce the coating. Once the delamination process starts, it's just rapid decay after that. However, with a lightly moistened (water, no chemicals) Q-tip, you can very carefully wipe off the sugars from the spill. Just avoid the edges. The press the cards on the flat surface you prepared.
Good luck
RWArchangel Avacyn, GWNazahn, Revered Bladesmith, RKari Zev, Skyship Raider (French Duel)