General Forum

My collection has gotten too big and I need to either rent a storage unit or put about 200,000 cards up in the attic.  Nothing really valuable, mostly junk wax in monster and super monster boxes.  Hard for me to justify paying $90/mo on a storage unit for storing junk wax, but wondering if storing them in the attic might adversely affect them.  I live in Southern California near the ocean so the weather is pretty moderate where I live, but the attic does get warm on hotter days.  Advice?

Do you have a way to control the climate in the attic? Keeping it at a constant temperature and humidity level year round is beneficial. I'm not sure what the ideal setings would be though.

That is a tough call but easier knowing most of the cards aren't worth a ton. Presuming you have space and don't live in Palm Springs, I'd recommend you store them in the attic. I'm cheap and avoid recurring expenses like storages fees so take that into account. My $0.02.

The attic is no place for cards if you can't keep the temps below about 90 degrees and the humidity less than about 45%. With older cards that have no gloss, that's about the minimum level of climate to keep the cards from getting damage. If you have some cards with gloss (like Glossy parallels, Glossy Inserts or Send-In sets), drop those temps and humidity even lower. If you have nothing glossy in those boxes and are using no plastic sleeves, they might be okay without climate-control in southern CA. Those aren't the only things you have to think about when storing cards in the attic though. Weather happens above your house and hail or rain can get in at some point. The first thing they'll damage is the stuff in the attic. There are lots of things to consider when storing cards away for a long period of time.