My Cups are stored in a below-ground basement. During summers, with the air-conditioner running, the basement is quite humid. I run a dehumidifier to mitigate the relative ambient humidity, but the air still gets a bit moist on any given day.

Does anyone have the same problem? Does anyone have experience with long-term exposure of Tin, Copper, Bronze, etc., to a humid environment?

Thanks to all,

From what my Cup buddies tell me from Asia... the humidity there can turn a set of Cups in days. I have not read about the effect of humidity on Cups stored in a humid basement, it would be good to know. I have the opposite situation... where I live is somewhat dry; I have to work at getting Cups to turn.

I suppose that if one is really worried about what might happen to their Cups, a treatment of wax could be a preventative... see recent postings about cleaning Cups.

Thanks,
Bruce

Interesting question. I live on a boat. I have two sets of cups. One set is chromed aluminum and the other is Copper. I don't even bother cleaning the Copper set because it only takes them a couple of days to be completely tarnished again. So the humidity has a definite effect on the cups. My aluminum set is just fine though.

Thank you to those who posted.

Tarnishing is not my concern so much as the possibility of corrosion.

I think tin and steel would be subjective to corrosiveness over copper and aluminum. Thoughts?
-Lee

This depends on what else is in the atmosphere. For example, if you are in a saltwater environment, aluminum will be at great risk.

This thought just struck me. If you are worried about the way the air in the room your cups will affect the metals they are made of, there are several steps you can take to avoid problems.

1) First, analyze your air. You don't need to have an expensive analysis done. Take a few pieces of the same metals your cups are made of, clean them and leave them out in the open for a few weeks. A silver-plated spoon, a piece of brass, a piece of copper and a piece of bronze will tell you a lot.

2) My own experience has shown me that silver cups are very sensitive to atmospheric contamination. This is especially true if there is any rubber or anything that has a sulfur component in the air. I keep all of my silver or silver plated cups in plastic containers. This seems to offer plenty of protection.

3) There are various products that will remove some tarnishing agents from the air in enclosed spaces, such as drawers or cabinets. These might be of help.

4) If all else fails, zip-lock plastic bags should work.

I store all cups in platic bags, but I don't use the zip-lock type. If you cups stack and nest together, it's adequate to just use one plastic sandwich bags per cup and stack them together. You get a fairly air-tight fit when they are stacked.
But I do this to slow/stop copper, brass and silver from tarnishing.
I don't really have experience with excessive humidity.

You might also want to store your balls separately. I used to keep them all together and some on display stacked on the cups, but the leather in the monkey fists left dark stains where they contacted the metal.

Never store leather covered balls inside your cups. Some vinyl covered balls may also be problematic. The plasticisers can cause trouble.

Ahhummm ........... take them out of the basement.

Another source of trouble is atmospheric contaminants. If you live in an area near chemical plants, refineries, etc., you may have a problem with this.

I noticed today that MOVING cups from air conditioned indoors to a hot humid outdoors caused condensation to immediately form on the cups. That will certainly accelerate tarnish.

This is the same reason I tell younger/newer coin magicians not to store their nice silver coins in a leather pouch/purse/holder that is not completely coated on the inside with a neutral-fiber material. The tanning solutions used on the leather are what turn the silver and ruin it. They can, over time, do the same to copper. As Bill mentioned, vinyl balls need to be kept separate as well.

I use plastic bags and a couple of my sets are stored in a velvet-lined box, some that I made and other that I had made for me. Another solution would be a clean, 100% cotton tube sock, providing it is soft. I also have various leather cups that are all stored in their own boxes with a cheap guitar case himidifier and humiditiy gauge.

I hope this informations/input is useful to you.