Hello, Thaivisa friends, I am hoping that you might help us. We have many, many guitar strings as per the attached photo. These strings were bought some years ago in Singapore and were meant to be sold but that never happened. Instead they have been in storage all this time. Our question is, do these strings ever go bad/deteriorate? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Roger

If you kept them in a humidty controlled box, then they should be fine-ish. However, they all start to oxidise the moment they are made, and the deterioration starts then. So your best bet is to open them and have a look. If they are over 10 years old, they will be mostly junk, although they might have some appeal for a collector who wants original strings for his gibson guitar.

How old are they? How have they been stored? Are they in sealed pouches (airtight)?

Thanks for your response; much appreciated.. Unfortunately, they are at the 10 year mark and were stored in cardboard boxes under questionable storage conditions. They are in their clear plastic covers but they are not airtight. I just opened one and can see that there is some rust. Alas, looks like they are bound for the garbage dump unless someone might have a suggestion for recycling them. Thanks again.

You could put them on a free small-ad website. You have nothing to lose and someone may be interested.

I would have thought that any oxidation would only be on the surface and could easily be cleaned off, but I'm not an expert.

Once they have rust on them they are useless. Sort through them all and throw out the rusted ones and make up sets from the OK ones.

Sadly only G strings deteriorate over time sniff sniff sob.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Keep well.

I don't know. If they're in a sealed package they could be alright.

I wouldn't throw them away without trying them. I buy different kinds of strings but they're always in sealed packages. If they're rusty they're bad.

Uncoated strings start to go bad immediately in this climate. I'm lucky if I get a month out of a set of strings.

So, yes they do go bad but they're probably okay.

Heck if you are going to throw them away, throw them to me... haha.... I have some Ernie Ball strings in sealed enviro pack that have had rust show up in spots on unwound strings when package opened.... how many is "many many"?

How many packs do you have

10, 50, 100, 1000, 10,000 ?

Guy Clark & Emmylou Harris : Black Diamond Strings