Why Every Card Collector is Switching to Acid-Free Sleeves

There are hidden dangers when using cheap card sleeves, including the potential damage to your favorite cards. Ironic? Yes, but in all seriousness, a little bit of research will go a long way when it comes to using the right card sleeves. We cover the different materials sleeves are made of, what you need to look out for, and the best sleeves we recommend for safe cards.

What Are Acid-Free and PVC Sleeves?

The term “Acid-Free” started gaining traction in the ’90s, within the sports cards niche. But it’s unclear where the “acid” part originated from since it’s not accurate.

“Acid-Free” became a marketing buzzword used by manufacturers and collectors to describe sleeves that won’t damage your cards. At this point in time, collectors were finding their sleeves to be yellowing, becoming brittle, and sticking to their cards, so the term “Acid-Free” was born.

When we talk about sleeves and the plastic material they’re made of, we use the word “inert” to describe a stable material that will not break down over time. Polypropylene is an inert material that is often used to make sleeves, but we’ll circle back to that in a minute. 

The sleeves that were damaging cards did not contain acid but were made of Polyvinyl Chloride, also known as PVC. The material PVC is used all over the world and can be solid or flexible. But PVC can be dangerous, as it breaks down over time. This is noticeable by its yellowing, hardening, and oily traits. 

How To Tell If Sleeves Are Acid Or PVC Free?

If you read the packaging you will usually see “Acid-Free” or “PVC Free”. If you can’t find that anywhere, then you can look for the recycling symbol instead. 

If you see the number 3 with a ‘V’ below it, use caution because these are PVC sleeves. Like we said earlier: OK for short-term use, but bad for long-term use.

What you want to use are polypropylene sleeves. This is indicated by a number 5 with ‘PP’ below it. Polypropylene is an inert material that has heat-resistant properties. Most of the sleeves you own are probably polypropylene since it is now widely used for card sleeves. 

Why Use Acid-Free Sleeves?

Pretty much all sleeves you buy today will say “Acid-Free” on the packaging. As mentioned earlier, this isn’t really a thing, so you want to instead look for “PVC Free”. 

PVC sleeves won’t damage your cards short term. In fact, if you burn through a set of sleeves every month (due to a lot of gameplay), then PVC sleeves should be fine. The hidden dangers come from long-term storage.

If you are a collector or plan to keep your cards for more than a year, then avoid PVC sleeves.

What Happens If You Don’t Use Acid-Free Sleeves?

PVC is a rigid material that can become flexible upon the addition of plasticizers. These can change a rigid vinyl into a flexible one, and in some cases, even a gel. 

The most common plasticizer is phthalates, which introduce particular health risks to the material, but are slowly being phased out of the manufacturing process. 

Card sleeves are obviously flexible, so that means that a bunch of stuff (plasticizers) is added to the PVC. To keep it simple: the PVC used to make card sleeves break down over time, causing damage to your cards.

Are Pokémon ETB Sleeves Acid-Free?

People are always asking if Elite Trainer Box (ETB) sleeves are safe to use. These are the official Pokémon sleeves and many rumors have circulated that they will ruin your cards.

To keep it simple, right here on the official website you can check the specifications of their sleeves and see that they are made of polypropylene. So the answer is yes, ETB sleeves are safe to use.

Sleeves We Recommend

If you jumped over to Amazon to look at sleeves already then you probably got overwhelmed really quickly. Don’t worry, there are a lot of sleeves to choose from. 

We’ve done the research already, so here is our list of the best sleeves that are safe to use.

• Dragon Shield
• BCW
• Ultra Pro
• Titanshield
• VaultX
• Pro Support

Conclusion

So to sum it all up, “acid” isn’t something you have to worry about, since it’s just a buzzword. However, you do have to watch out for PVC sleeves, which will damage your cards over a long period of time. When you’re buying sleeves, look for the number 5 recycling symbol and the words “PVC Free”.