A zine (short for magazine), is typically a small-circulation, self-published piece of original or borrowed texts and images. While zines are often reproduced on a copy machine today, they have a history that predates photocopy machines.
Elysia, the owner of Irvington Vinyl & Books, discusses the history of zines, and their current significance in the Indianapolis community.
Continue readingBCW offers wholesale accounts to resellers of BCW products such as hobby shops and online retailers. Customers that wish to resell BCW products and have a business license from their state or federal government can apply for a BCW wholesale account. Once approved for a wholesale account, businesses can order BCW products at reduced pricing, and our wholesale Free Shipping policy* applies (*you must sign-in to your wholesale account to view the wholesale Free Shipping details).
In order for wholesale accounts to achieve Free Shipping, the order must meet a few requirements. First, the value of the order must reach our Free Shipping threshold. For some products the threshold is $1,000, but the threshold is only $500 for the products in the Music Category. Once the Free Shipping threshold is reached, everything on that order will ship for free. A second requirement for wholesale Free Shipping is the shipping address must be a singular commercial address in the 48 contiguous United States or Washington DC. If you select to ship to a residential address, you can pay for the delivery, or you can use our Free Shipping Program but a Residential Delivery Surcharge will apply. The Residential Delivery Surcharge is $50 for small orders, and $100 for large orders.
There are several options to avoid this Residential Delivery Surcharge if you originally planned to ship to a home address.
Continue readingIf you’re experiencing issues with a purchase made on Amazon, it’s important to know that while BCW sells products there, your item might have been bought from a third-party seller. For any manufacturing-related problems with a BCW product, we’re here to help. However, for other issues, you should contact the seller directly.
Finding and messaging the seller on Amazon can be confusing. We’ve prepared a video guide to simplify this process for you. It will show you how to identify the seller and how to contact them.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with your Amazon purchase and hope that the seller will resolve your issue promptly.
By Sal Barry
Storing physical media can be a constant challenge for collectors. Video games, DVDs and/or Blu-ray Discs add up over time and take up a lot of space. I understand why many have sold off their DVD or video game collections, since much of this can be streamed or downloaded via the internet. But there are good reasons for keeping your physical media, and that’s where BCW’s Media Storage Boxes can help you stay organized while keeping your collection pristine.
For a restaurant, visual appeal is important, making a great-looking menu one of the elements to success. After the food has been selected, and a beautiful menu has been designed, it’s important for restaurants to keep their menus looking new and clean. Toploading Print Holders, or simply toploaders, may be the perfect choice for your restaurant, diner, or bar. Toploaders work great if your menu is a single sheet of paper (two-sided), but toploaders are not the solution for you if your menu has multiple pages that fold.
Toploaders are semi-rigid holders that are essentially two layers of clear PVC plastic. The sides and bottom are sealed with plastic ribs, while the top is open, allowing you to slide the menu into the holder. This PVC material is super simple for staff to quickly wipe clean, just try to prevent liquids from getting into the top of the holder. This material is durable and unlikely to break if dropped.
Continue readingTo best preserve a magazine collection, store them in a dark, dry, cool environment. To further protect magazines, place them in sealed magazine bags with a magazine backing board inserted in the bag behind each magazine. The bags and boards will protect the edges, keep the covers in good condition, and minimize the effects of oxidation (the paper turning yellow). BCW magazine bags are made from either polypropylene or mylar. Both materials are acid-free. BCW backing boards are acid-free as well.
Holiday cards are a great way to remind friends and family that you care. While social media, emails and texts are convenient for normal messages, sending holiday cards is a classic holiday tradition. Families often display the cards they’ve received on the fireplace mantel or in a festive basket. Don’t discard these cards after the holidays. It’s easy to protect and organize your cards, making them a part of your family’s history.
BCW offers several solutions for protecting, displaying, and organizing holiday cards, including:
Let’s say you’re at a local convention and you see the Barbie or GI Joe you used to have. It’s in its original box and it has a crazy-high price tag. You think to yourself, “If I kept just a few of my old toys in their original boxes, they could be worth hundreds now”. Well, here’s your chance to protect your POP! figs so they’ll be in mint condition 30 years from now. BCW offers clear boxes to protect POP! figs in their original box. Yes! A box in a protective box makes sense after you see the value of those familiar old toys.
BCW POP! Figure Boxes are made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate), an archival-quality, crystal-clear plastic that is semi-rigid and impact resistant. BCW offers protective boxes for the standard 4-inch figs and the larger 6-inch figs. Do not confuse these large figs with the even larger “vehicles”.
Boxes for Regular POP! figs
4 1/8″ x 3 9/16″ x 6 3/8″
Boxes for Large POP! figs
6 5/8″ x 5 9/16″ x 8 1/16″
Toploading holders are an affordable method to protect and display photos, documents, posters, and other large art prints. These toploaders are made from a clear PVC which does not contain chemicals that will damage the enclosed prints.
BCW offers a range of sizes of toploaders. Below are the poster sizes in inches. You can view smaller sizes for cards, photos, and specialty items here.
| 8 x 10 | 8 x 12 | 8.5 x 11 | 8.5 x 14 | |
| 9 x 12 | 10 x 15 | 11 x 14 | 11 x 15 | |
| 11 x 17 | 12 x 18 | 13 x 19 | 14 x 17 | |
| 16 x 20 | 18 x 24 | 20 x 24 | 22 x 28 | |
| 24 x 30 | 24 x 36 | 29 x 43 | 30 x 40 | |
| 32 x 43 | 12 x 36 |
Inserting documents into toploaders can be tricky if the document is glossy, as static electricity between the glossy document and the plastic prevent sliding the piece into the toploader. To help, blow into the toploader as you insert the document, creating a thin cushion of air between the glossy document and the plastic. Just make sure you don’t spit on the document.
BCW Toploaders are designed to store prints on a shelf or in a box, hence they do not have a hanging mechanism. If your goal is to display the print on a wall, a little MacGyvering is needed. For small to medium toploaders, you can adhere these hang tabs on the back of the toploaders. Adhesive backed flat magnets or Velcro work great in many instances. You can also look in the hardware aisle at your local home center or craft store to find hanging systems from 3M and others. For the larger posters shown above, we drilled small holes in the upper corners of the toploaders and hung them with small finishing nails.
National Geographic has been publishing some of the best photography, social stories and science news for over a century. For collectors that want to preserve their yellow-bordered magazine collection, BCW bags, backing boards, and boxes are an ideal solution. While BCW offers supplies to protect traditionally-sized magazines, BCW’s products sized for Silver Age comics books are perfect for National Geographic. The Silver Age is an era in comic book publishing from 1956 to 1969 when comics were similar in dimensions to National Geographics.
To get the correct comic bag for a National Geographic, use the Silver Thick Comic Book Bag along with a Silver Age Comic Book Backing Board.
To hold a group of five National Geographics, try a Comic Book Stor-Folio.
The BCW Short Comic Box can hold approximately 56 National Geographics in bags and boards, with room for a few BCW Comic Book Dividers. A BCW Long Comic Box can hold about 100 National Geographics. For a premium box solution, try a BCW Comic Book Bin with a partition that acts as a bookend to keep your National Geographics upright in the bin.
