Black o-rings or no o-rings for long term storage?

[kaplan]

The yellow gaskets you see were actually o-rings assumably, and the yellow material was very pleasant as I've never seen it flake, only sometimes break in easy to clean chunks, I mostly leave yellow gasketed watches alone and wish I could buy the same material now

Omega then replaced these yellow o-rings/gaskets with regular black o-rings, maybe 20% of the time I get a flaking black o-ring, I make a habit of removing/cleaning black o-rings for this reason, and they are EXTREMELY challenging to remove when hardened, several cycles in ultrasonic

I don't use watches and intend to store them in my collection for a long time - lately I've been leaving the gasket area empty

Now my question is, is there an advantage/reason to installing new black o-rings?

I'd say 50% of watches have rust in the gasket area, so installing an o-ring could seal those potentially growing pits, but since these watches won't interact with humidity, would it make a difference?

 

[Dan S]

You definitely want to avoid long-term contact with any sort of rubber or plastic. Maybe the best thing would be to remove the backs and the crystals, and store them separately in archival acid-free paper sleeves. Same with the movement/dial assembly.

 

[kaplan]

I wish I had a solution to keep the dials safe outside of their cases, but for the time being they are the safest pressed onto their armor rings. That stress maybe reduce their life from 1000's of years to a 100 more years but better than tumbling a dial/movement box and ruining 10's of watches with a single move

 

[Dan S]

There are all kinds of archival paper envelopes for coins.

 

[kaplan]

Thanks, I definitely will apply your suggestion to a degree, I had a bunch of acid free paper hoarded up from incoming shipments but seems like a good idea to invest in some better options - but realised it's not all about preservation either, I do enjoy looking at them and probably can't do without

 

[Dan S]

Certain plastics (e.g. polypropylene) are very good for long term storage, but you want to avoid vinyl (PVC).

 

[Dash1]

Dan S

Certain plastics (e.g. polypropylene) are very good for long term storage, but you want to avoid vinyl (PVC).

Are zip lock bags vinyl? I often use them to store watches along with a desiccant bag enclosed.

 

[Dan S]

Dash1

Are zip lock bags vinyl? I often use them to store watches along with a desiccant bag enclosed.

I think that supermarket zip-lock bags are polyethylene.

 

[kaplan]

It's actually another thing I wonder, the contact safety of acrylic with other plastics, I wonder if polypropylene is safe for let's say 20 years

I guess I'd wrap a watch with a microfiber cloth and store it that way, but unsure even that could imprint on the acrylic

All this fear comes from the 90's saran wrapped and ruined products, people used to saran wrap things to protect and they all ended up being ruined and stained