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Acid-free boxes, sleeves and albums for family papers and photographs

Verity NationalArchival supplies · York Order supplies

Cabinet · front drawer

Drawer 01 · Verity National

Somewhere safe for the family papers

Acid-free lidded boxes, clear polyester sleeves, buffered tissue and slip-in albums, each listed with its size, material and price — packed in York and posted to any address in the UK.

An opened steel drawer packed with bundled paper files tied with string
Bundles in an ordinary steel drawer: the clips, string and brown card are the first things to replace.
Drawer 02 · Facts of the house

What we are, in four lines

  • Posted across the UK from YorkEvery nation and the islands, from one packing bench.
  • Acid-free and lignin-freeBoards, wallets and tissue made to sit beside paper for decades.
  • Size and material on every itemInternal measurements and the stuff it is made of, always listed.
  • Supplies only — no scanning or valuationWe sell the storage; your papers stay at home with you.
Drawer 03 · Price slips

Every item, with its price

Eight things, sized and priced plainly. Click a name for the full description of the material and the fit.

A low lidded document box photographed on a plain grey ground
Accession VN-B01

Lidded box, A4

Internal 315 × 225 × 80 mm. Acid-free, lignin-free grey board, two-piece lid with a full drop.

£14inc. VAT where due

An empty open box base showing its folded inner walls
Accession VN-B02

Lidded box, foolscap

Internal 350 × 240 × 80 mm. Same board as the A4 box, cut long for foolscap deeds and ledgers.

£16inc. VAT where due

Close view of a handwritten old document with an embossed paper stamp
Accession VN-T01

Buffered tissue, 25 sheets

500 × 750 mm sheets, acid-free, buffered with calcium carbonate, for interleaving letters and papers.

£9inc. VAT where due

Two sepia portrait prints mounted side by side in an Edwardian album
Accession VN-A01

Slip-in album, 40 pages

Cloth-covered board binding, 40 archival pages with polyester pockets taking two 6×4 in prints a side.

£32inc. VAT where due

A small wooden tray holding folded old papers beside a clear bag
Accession VN-W01

Document wallets, pack of 10

A4 folded wallets in acid-free card with a tuck flap, to keep one bundle of papers together.

£11inc. VAT where due

An opened steel drawer packed with bundled paper files tied with string
Accession VN-K01

Family papers starter kit

One A4 lidded box, ten document wallets, fifty 6×4 in sleeves, 25 sheets of tissue, a soft labelling pencil and a printed sorting sheet.

£49inc. VAT where due

Drawer 04 · The stock

What the drawers hold

A short range on purpose. Each line exists because a box of inherited papers usually needs it, and nothing is here to make up the numbers.

Acid-free lidded boxes

Two-piece boxes in A4 and foolscap for letters, certificates and deeds. The board carries no lignin, so it will not yellow and pass that acidity on to the papers lying inside it.

Clear polyester sleeves

Uncoated polyester pockets for prints and postcards, in 6×4 and 10×8 inch. You can read the back of a photograph through the sleeve without ever touching its surface.

Buffered and unbuffered tissue

Thin sheets to interleave letters and wrap folded documents. We explain which kind suits which paper, because colour prints want something different from parchment.

Slip-in albums

Bound albums whose pages are polyester pockets — no adhesive, no plastic film pressed onto prints, nothing that sets hard over the years.

Document wallets

Folded acid-free card wallets that keep one person's or one year's papers together inside a box, with room on the front for a pencilled label.

Starter kits

One box, the wallets, sleeves and tissue a single family's papers usually need, with a sorting sheet to work through a first evening.

Drawer 05 · How we work
A white cabinet of shallow flat drawers standing open in a museum store
Shallow flat drawers in a museum store — the same thinking, at household size.

A small York supply house, run by post

Verity National is a small business in York that does one thing: it sells the boxes, sleeves, tissue, albums and wallets people need to put a family's papers and photographs away properly. The word National in the name has a narrow meaning — we post to every part of the United Kingdom — and nothing grander than that.

Most of the people who write to us have just been handed something: a shoebox of letters after a house clearance, an envelope of school photographs, a father's service papers, a bundle of deeds tied with ribbon. They do not want a lecture. They want to know which box fits foolscap, whether the sleeves will scratch a print, and what to do with the rusty pins. So every item in the shop states its internal size, what it is made of and what it is for, and the guide page explains the rest.

An order runs simply. You pick items on the order form and press send. We read the request, check that what you picked will hold what you described in the message box, and write back by e-mail from [email protected] with a secure payment link and the final total including postage. Nothing is taken from your card until you follow that link. When payment lands, the parcel is packed flat and leaves York inside two working days; its tracking reference follows.

What we value is fit and honesty about materials. A box that is too big lets papers slump and curl; one that is too small bends them at the corners. We would rather tell you that your 12×10 inch prints need the large sleeve than sell you the smaller pack. We also say plainly what we will not do: we never take in originals, and we do not scan, value, research or treat anything. If a letter is torn or a photograph has mould on it, that is work for a trained conservator, not for a shop.

We answer mail on working days and tend to reply within one of them. If you are unsure which size you need, measure the largest item, add a centimetre all round, and tell us the figure — we will match it to a box or a sleeve.

Drawer 06 · Common questions

Questions we are asked most

What does acid-free actually mean?

It means the board or paper tests neutral to slightly alkaline when it is made, with a pH of seven or above, and has had the lignin taken out of the wood pulp. Lignin is what turns newsprint brown: it breaks down into acids that migrate into anything touching it. Ordinary cardboard and envelopes carry it; our boxes, wallets and tissue do not.

Buffered or unbuffered tissue for photographs?

Buffered tissue holds a reserve of calcium carbonate that soaks up acids, which suits letters, certificates, newspaper cuttings and most black-and-white prints. Colour photographs, blueprints and some early print processes prefer a neutral surround, so for those we suggest a polyester sleeve rather than tissue. We list buffered tissue only, and the sleeve page explains the choice.

Can I store negatives in the sleeves?

Yes, provided each negative fits flat inside the sleeve without bending. Single sheet negatives and glass-free film up to the sleeve size sit well in polyester. Strips of small roll film are better kept in purpose-made strip pages, which we do not stock, so we would rather say that than sell you the wrong pack.

How quickly do you post?

Parcels are packed in York and leave us inside two working days once paid for. A tracked service then reaches most UK addresses in one to three working days; costs and times by region sit on the postage page.

Can I return an unopened pack?

Yes. Send it back within thirty days of delivery, still sealed and in a saleable state, and we pay back the price of the goods to whichever card or account was charged. Return postage is yours unless the item arrived faulty or was not what you ordered.

Do you scan or value documents?

No. Verity National sells storage supplies and nothing else. We do not digitise, we do not appraise papers or photographs, we do not trace family trees and we do not treat torn or stained items. Please do not post originals to us.

Drawer 07 · Begin

Put one family's papers away properly

The starter kit at £49 is the easiest beginning: one lidded box, wallets, sleeves, tissue and a sorting sheet. Or pick single items and we will tell you if anything is missing.

Drawer 08 · Where to find us

Writing to Verity National

Hours
Mail answered Monday to Friday, 9.00 to 17.00. Parcels leave on working days.

Where
Packed in York, England; posted to England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the islands.

To order, use the order page; to ask a question first, write to the mailbox above.