Archival boxes and acid-free cardboard archive boxes – ready-made boxes for documents, files, correspondence and photographic collections, designed for decades of protection. A properly selected archival box protects the contents from light, dust and acids, while ensuring ventilation and easy access to stored materials. This is a fundamental element of any archiving system.
Archive boxes are the outer layer of protection for collections and also the one that has direct contact with the stored objects throughout the storage period. Ordinary office cardboard boxes are made from acidic cardboard (pH 4–5), which within a few years begins to emit acids that degrade the documents inside. Acid-free archive boxes (pH 7–8.5) not only do not harm their contents, but - in the variant with alkaline reserve, they actively neutralise acids penetrating from the surroundings.
Archival boxes are available in standard formats to fit files, A4 documents, photographs, and correspondence. Archival cardboard can take the form of a document box with a lift-off lid, a tube for rolled documents, or a flat package for large-format graphics. Paper document boxes are the most commonly chosen form – they work well on archive shelves as well as in storage with limited space. In addition to ready-made document boxes, archival cardboard is also available in sheets, which allows for the construction of packaging with non-standard dimensions, precisely tailored to a specific object or collection.
