STORAGE: Proper storage and handling is paramount to maintaining and preserving your posters. Humidity, temperature, and UV exposure are all factors that must be controlled. Most collectors want to display and enjoy their collections, but in the case of posters, environmental conditions must be controlled in order to properly preserve them.

CONSERVATORIAL TECHNIQUES, MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES:

Washing, or rehydration, helps to cleanse away adulterants, contaminants and surface dirt. When warranted a rinse with an appropriate carbonate will help to provide a buffer and  and keep the naturally occurring acids inherent in modern, machine made paper at non-detrimental levels for many years.

PASTES AND ADHESIVES:

A wide variety of pastes and adhesives are available to the modern conservator. We, at POSTER MOUNTAIN use only those adhesives which can be easily reversed with water. We assume that at some point, the market will change,  new conservatorial techniques will be discovered, or due to age and mis-handling, the conservation work we are doing today will need to be un-done, or re-done at some point in the future. It is for this reason that we use easily reversible pastes, and strong, yet penetrable backing materials to help ease future re-conservation efforts.

NATURAL STARCH PASTES: Very popular amongst conservators, Rice and Wheat pastes alone have stood the test of time. However, these organic pastes can often attract molds, mildews,  insects, and can yellow over time. Adulterants, added to these pastes to prevent molds from culturing, and to make them less attractive to insects are generally acidic compounds which will have a deleterious effect on the poster over time. Also, when de-mounting a poster mounted with starch pastes, the old paste will often become so thin as to permeate deep into the fibers of the poster being de-mounted. This causes the poster to lose it's structural integrity, and makes it prone to damage during the process.

SYNTHETIC PASTES:  A very wide range of water soluble, water based synthetic pastes are available to the modern conservator. Some of these pastes are considered to be archival, they will not yellow over time, and remain soluble in water, but will not break down completely, making the clean up of old mounting paste much less dangerous to the poster.   We at POSTER MOUNTAIN are constantly researching new techniques and procedures, including the use of synthetic pastes, and paste combinations. Currently, we use  proprietary mixtures of wheat paste, synthetic pastes, methyl cellulose, and PVA (Poly Vinyl Acetate). The combinations we employ varies depending on the job at hand.

MOUNTING SUBSTRATES: Linen backing and paper backing are the two most commonly used techniques in modern poster conservation. Linen backing is a misnomer as most conservators use cotton canvas rather than actual linen. We at POSTER MOUNTAIN use only the finest cotton canvas available, grade "A", 12oz., raw, unbleached canvas imported from India. We create a laminate mount with a white, machine made Japanese paper called MASA, which is sandwiched between the poster and the canvas, this helps to give the mount more body, while also providing a smooth surface for the poster.

 For our paper mounts we use a hand made, long fibered, Japanese mulberry paper called OKIWARA.

LINEN BACKING VS. PAPER BACKING: Paper backing, or museum mounting is the preferred method for large libraries and archives in which the posters will be handled and stored professionally in climate controlled environments, such as the ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURES ARTS AND SCIENCES library and UNIVERSAL STUDIOS poster archives, (both accounts are serviced exclusively by POSTER MOUNTAIN). Museum mounting is a very delicate mount, and very easy to un-do, and must be handled with extreme care.

Linen backing, is the preferred method of poster conservation for the collector market where items are often stored improperly, and handled roughly. These items are often shipped back and forth around the world, and change hands frequently. Linen backing is a comparatively durable mount and very suitable for framing, however, it should always be handled with care, and stored properly.