I'm sure this has been covered before, but what is the best way of storing vinyl records, sleeves and their covers?
I think it is safe to say the vast majority of available options can’t be classed as ‘archival-grade’, the very fact poly inners and various outers degrade, paper or card inners can mark or bruise the vinyl etc proves that.
The object is clear; to preserve the entire item, i.e. the vinyl, sleeve, inner and any stickers, posters or booklets that came with it in pristine condition. My best guess is that the Japanese very shiny outers, sometimes referred to ‘Blake sleeves’ are probably the best sleeve protection as they seem to be the same material that is used for comic books etc and I think museums etc class as ‘archival’. I hate the type with sticky flaps with a passion, just so awkward to use and so much risk of putting the sleeve down on the sticky bit. I have my collection in the bog-standard poly outers, which do seem to have a lifespan and start to look dull and tatty after a decade or so, but they do protect the covers and I’ve seen nothing in the way of damage from them.
For vinyl it is clear to me now that poly inners do have a lifespan, albeit a long one. As such they can’t be considered ‘archival’. How Nagaoka style inners hold up long term, but I’ve personally not seen one fail yet. I don’t know enough about plastic to know what they are made from and how it differs from a Decca-style poly (that do go off), but I’m assuming the MoFi style audiophile sleeves with the rice-paper backing are of a similar material and likely stable long term.
The only thing to do is to monitor things IMO. I’ve just got to the end of my collection now and replaced a lot of sleeves, but thankfully didn’t find anything with damage aside from the initially mentioned ‘70s Camel album, and that has been caught very early. I had actually done most of my really collectable stuff a long time ago, that’s all in Nagaokas, but I missed a lot of the stuff in the mid-80s when I was broke and using any old poly-inner I could find inside hard card inners, e.g. I found the pictured Decca types trimmed down to fit inside the card inners of Sonic Youth’s Sister and Big Black’s Songs About ****ing. Not the places one would expect to find them!