Making a photo album with your loose photos

[Akira Takiguchi]

This thread was originally in E-stand. Thought it might be interesting to others, so I brought it here with a bit of editing.

What do you do when you get bunch of loose photos, or when you get a badly damaged album?

One way is to get an empty original wartime album and put your photos on it.

It's not a bad idea, it looks neat!

But I strongly recommend to fix the photos on A4 black (or white) thick paper using photo corners (photos on one side), and put them in plastic sleeves (two papers in a sleeve). Then put them in a ring binder.

Merits:

1. You can easily take out one piece of paper to scan any photos. With classic albums it is difficult and likely to damage the album.
   
2. Photos are better protected from air (and humidity).
   
3. Even after when it becomes no longer yours in the future, the album is clearly a modern production and not a faked one.
   
4. You don't have to worry about too few or too many black leaves in classic albums.
   

Dave (dm5000) wrote:

I agree with Akira... One other thought that he didnt mention though.... Many photos of this vintage have writing on the back. I use high quality baseball card holders to store pictures. If you mount them in a traditional album, the writing is out of sight.. out of mind....

This is an important and good alternative, I think.

Much faster. Your own comment can be written on a similar size of white paper and put it in a pocket.

Tim Calvert asked:

Have you ever had any problems with photos sticking to the plastic due to humidity??

I'm a bit worried about it. My photo room is kept at 45-50% humidity using a 24-hour air conditioning, which should keep away the problem. But where humidity can go high, plastic bags may do some harm. I have no definite answer here.

[François SAEZ]

Akira,
Can you show an example, please.

[dm5000]

Thanks for starting the thread Akira. E-stand wasnt a good spot for it.

Here is how I store my loose photos. I use Print File brand photo holders found here:

http://www.printfile.com

This photo was from an early album and the sleeve is a different brand, but you get the idea. Print File item #120-9HB (Holds eighteen 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" wallet prints or collectable cards.
Fits: hanging file, standard binder) is perfect for about 80% of my loose photos. As you can see from the website, they have a range of sizes if you collect postcards or other items.

I only put one photo per slot so that I can read comments on the reverse, but $10USD gets you 25 sleeves x 9 pictures per sleeve or 225 pictures. Not a bad deal.

Also, some interesting information about temps, humidity, etc. here:
http://www.printfile.com/whyarchive.cfm

Dave

[dm5000]

Being able to read the comments on the reverse is critical to me and (for me) represents much of the value of photos.

Dave

[Stijn David]

Hello,


Thanks for the very usefull tips in this thread => I think I will mount the loose pictures on A4 paper ( black or white ) as I have done alreay before => that way I do not harm a original untouched period Photo album + it will never be original or period mounted.

The main point is to preserve the history behind a person, Unit, etc ... etc ... and I like the constructiveness of such threads .


Cordial Greetings,