# A time travelers dilemma: where to store vintage documents for hundreds of years **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575 "2025-08-29T13:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/21 "2025-08-29T15:09:25Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > My thinking is to find an old farmhouse that you know will survive through the centuries. If you buy it in 18th century America, when it’s new, you can store the items in a safe inside. > > Of course, you’d need to find a caretaker for the place, in order to keep it in fact standing all those years. How about endowing a small town library? Establish a sufficient trust fund to keep it going for 200 years, establish the rules on hiring of new employees over time, and write it into their mandate to provide long-term document storage for the parent foundation that endowed it. Then, send them everything you want saved, and it’s their job to keep it intact for as long as possible, until the parent foundation asks for it back. Send them a bunch of routine documents as cover for the famous ones you want to sell. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/22 "2025-08-29T15:12:00Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Aren’t there institutions in Britain that have endured for centuries and maintained archives of documents the whole time? Colleges, insurance companies, law firms, banks, etc. It looks like Lloyd’s of London has been around since the 1600s. Can I give them something in the 1750s and claim it in modern times? > [@Horatius](#): > > How about endowing a small town library? Establish a sufficient trust fund to keep it going for 200 years… Now we’re talking! Great idea ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/23 "2025-08-29T15:14:16Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > A lot of you seem to empathize with my situation, but haven’t offered solutions. Fair enough; assuming time travel in a non-predestined universe, instead of mucking about with trying to find some place to secure the documents undisturbed for centuries, simply use artificial aging methods applying the [Arrhenius equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation) to speed normal chemical degradation processes in the parchment and ink. (The question of how to also accelerate the beta decay of 14C isotopes to obtain the correct isotopic ratio is a matter left to the advanced reader.) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/24 "2025-08-29T15:17:48Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Where do I do that? I need it well preserved, so it doesn’t get destroyed. And I need to put it somewhere that wont be completely transformed over 2 and a half centuries. How about a cemetery? If there are graves that we know haven’t been disturbed between the days of Ben Franklin and now, could we arrange for some stuff to be in a coffin until now? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/25 "2025-08-29T15:21:47Z")
Have you considered handing it over to Western Union with explicit directions that it be delivered to someone matching you description, answering to the name Moriarty, at an exact location and at an exact time? ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/26 "2025-08-29T15:22:36Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Have you considered handing it over to Western Union with explicit directions that it be delivered to someone matching you description, answering to the name Moriarty, at an exact location and at an exact time Does it have to be raining? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/27 "2025-08-29T15:23:36Z")
It’s certainly more dramatic if it is. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/28 "2025-08-29T15:23:44Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > How about a cemetery? Another brilliant idea! > **[Myles Standish Burial Ground](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish_Burial_Ground)** > > The Myles Standish Burial Ground (also known as Old Burying Ground or Standish Cemetery) in Duxbury, Massachusetts is, according to the American Cemetery Association, the oldest maintained cemetery in the United States. > The 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) burying ground is the final resting place of several well-known Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, including Captain Myles Standish. The site was the location of Duxbury's first meeting house. It was in use from approximately 1638 until 1789 ... ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/29 "2025-08-29T15:24:31Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > could we arrange for some stuff to be in a coffin until now? Getting it back would be a problem, and you’d probably run into legitimate ownership issues. Would the cemetery claim it? Would the descendants of the deceased claim it? You might even have a government claim part of it, under [“found treasure” rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove#United_States_law). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/30 "2025-08-29T15:30:06Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Getting it back would be a problem, and you’d probably run into legitimate ownership issues. I mean, you’ve got a time machine, right? Play grave robber, at a place where no one knows anything valuable has been stashed for centuries, and make your impossible getaway, and cash in the secret results of the heist a year before anyone would even think to look for a guy who may or may not have swiped stuff… …and then buy the cemetery… ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/31 "2025-08-29T15:34:08Z")
But the whole point is, the time travel is expensive! All that flitting about is cutting into your profits! ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/32 "2025-08-29T15:57:27Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I need it well preserved, so it doesn’t get destroyed. Buy a cheap vacuum food preserving machine and seal the docs in those vacuum bags (if there is no electricity available when you collect the docs just nab the docs, travel back to the future, seal them and then go back in time to hide them). Then bring some heavy-duty plastic garage storage bins with a latching lid (keeps water and bugs out) and put the stuff you want in there. Now, your only task is to find a place to keep them for a few hundred years. Some ideas have been suggested above. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/33 "2025-08-29T16:12:06Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Who has that kind of time? > [Mrs. Watchett](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0515967/?ref_=ttqu_qu): Mister Filby, do you think he’ll ever return? > [Filby](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0949241/?ref_=ttqu_qu): One cannot choose but wonder. You see, he has all the time in the world. -1960 film The Time Machine ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/34 "2025-08-29T18:00:50Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Buy a cheap vacuum food preserving machine and seal the docs in those vacuum bags (if there is no electricity available when you collect the docs just nab the docs, travel back to the future, seal them and then go back in time to hide them). That was my first thought. But if they’re preserved too well, they’re not going to look like they’re 200 years old when he goes back and digs them up. He’ll have to bring an archivist with him to help make sure they won’t get damaged, but will age. I feel like the best place is going to be somewhere that this kind of stuff tends to be found. In a wall, under some floorboards, in a box up in an attic. Somewhere that they’ll be slightly exposed to the elements, but won’t get wet or eaten by insects or anything else that will actually damage anything. Sidenote: Regarding the vacuum pump if you don’t have electricity. I was going to suggest bringing a nitrogen tank and purging the air from the bags but a hand pumped vacuum would work just fine and be a whole lot lighter. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/35 "2025-08-29T18:08:38Z")
It occurred to me that, since the OP has a time machine, they can test as many methods as they can think of. Grab a pile of books and newspapers or whatever from olden times that are worthless, store them under different conditions and pop back to the future and figure out which worked best. Then, go back, get the good stuff and you know how to best store them so they have max value and no one questions they are the real deal. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/36 "2025-08-29T19:04:54Z")
> [@Dark\_Sponge](#): > > Buy a good iron chest/strong box in 1753 and engage in much correspondence about nothing of importance. Maybe lookup George W. as well. Place the correspondence in the chest and bury it deep in the ground in the clearing This was my thought too. Though would you expect a 18th century chest to last 250+ years in the dirt without leaking? What are you best bets for hermetically sealing your papers for that length of time using 1700s tech? Resin? Unvulkanized rubber? AFAIK vulkanizing rubber isn’t very hard even with 1700s tech, though you’d have to make sure no one sees you do it and copies you, changing history in untold ways. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/37 "2025-08-29T19:11:48Z")
I had a interesting idea. Buy (or commission) a big heavy tome of some kind with a very thick binding cover. Nothing super valuable or world changing just interesting enough for a libray to accept it and keep it around. Then carve out out enough space in the cover to store your documents, put them in there and seal it up so no one would ever know. Then donate the book to Harvard library or some other library you know survives to the present day. Travel back to the present day, get academic credentials and come up with a reason to be interested in your book. Go to Harvard, get the book out in the reading room, extract your papers and seal it up again while no one is looking. Of course risks a significant criminal prosecution if someone notices what you are doing, which not ideal. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/38 "2025-08-29T19:12:02Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Though would you expect a 18th century chest to last 250+ years in the dirt without leaking? What are you best bets for hermetically sealing your papers for that length of time using 1700s tech? Just bring back a modern Pelican case or whatever with you. Unless you were counting on unearthing the thing in public and using the apparent age of the chest as part of the authentication of the documents. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/39 "2025-08-29T19:37:44Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Unless you were counting on unearthing the thing in public and using the apparent age of the chest as part of the authentication of the documents This was another thing I thought about, if your plan succeeds would anyone believe you if you didn’t do something like this? You have a letter with no provenance that you claim is from Ben Franklin. You could show the paper is from 1700s and the handwriting is consistent, but that is easily fakable (by some definition of “easy”). I don’t think it would be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575/40 "2025-08-29T19:47:02Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > What are you best bets for hermetically sealing your papers for that length of time using 1700s tech? How about a glass or ceramic jar? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-travelers-dilemma-where-to-store-vintage-documents-for-hundreds-of-years/1022575.md?page=3)