What are Archival Mats?
Archival mats are made to a much higher standard. I WOULD NOT BUY MATS FROM SOMEONE WHO ADVERTISES ARCHIVAL, ACID FREE MATS. They are generally just plain old standard core, acid neutral mats. They can be excellent mats but not archival if you are expecting archival quality. The best archival mats are cotton rag. Cotton is naturally acid free. Some paper based mats, called Alpha Cellulose because it sounds fancier than “paper”, are also excellent mats that meet archival standards. They have had additional cleaning to extract the ingredients that cause paper mats to become more acidic. Archival mats have been cleaned to remove such ingredients as “lignin” and “metals” that could be harmful to your art. Good archival mats also use pigmented inks to resist fading of the color. Alpha Cellulose mats are mats made of paper like Standard Core mats. However, the materials go through additional cleaning and purifying so they approach the archival standards of Cotton Rag, the standard in archiva
