General Forum

Last weekend, my brother gave me 4 duplicate cards he had from 1997-98 Finest from a box he had recently purchased.  Excited to add cards to my collection as normal, I first added them to my digital collection here.  But then came the part of adding them to my physical collection.

I don't have nearly as many cards as other members on this site, but I still have 3 boxes dedicated to basketball all in order.  So to put these cards away, I had to pick up stacks of cards, turn them around, and put them in the next row over.  One row at a time until I made it back to the first box and the row where my other 1997-98 Finest cards were.  I plugged in those 4 cards, and then proceeded to pick up the cards, turn them around, and get them all neatly back in order in the rows.

This took me longer than I expected.  To top it off, as I had put the first two boxes away, and was finishing up the last row in the 3rd box, I realized I didn't actually need to shift any cards into a new row.  There was actually enough space for the 4 cards to where I could have just put them in.  I filled up the original row with the same cards plus the 4.  

I told my wife I just wasted all that time and there had to be a better way.  But I can't think of one.  So long story short, how does everyone else here manage organizing a (relatively) large amount of cards when getting cards that are 20+ years old?

Your issue applies more to my traders than any other cards but is the same problem.  I have no issue with leaving plenty of "breathing room" in the rows for new additions to the boxes.  Usually, I will look to leave enough room in a row so as to make it easy to sort through the card numbers without having to pull them completely out of the box.  When I do get many more cards that cause rows to get filled up, then yes, I have to do what you just did.  But the times I have to do this is less fequent.

Shannon - for the better part of two years, I have been reorganizing, and continue to do so. Basketball is my top priority right now, because I want to get them out the door, hockey is next. Like Bruno, I leave lots of room at the end of rows in 5000 count boxes so that I can easily shift through the boxes. I have some cards that my dad wants me to get rid of for him as well that I will add once I finish cataloging mine. That was my original reason for the extra room, plus the ability to flip through them easily for trade purposes. 

Of course, each situation is unique. If you're limited with how many boxes or how much storage space you have, this may not work. But I've found it to be the best approach for me thus far.

Yes, leave a gap.    Or if you are simply adding 3 or 4 cards  just lay them flat across and on top the ones already in the box, you can insert them at a later date when you have more time.     Too many of us needlessly waste time trying to immediately get things in perfect order.

As others have said, leave a gap at the end of each box. One thing that I have noted over the years, however, is that doing this will sometimes cause the cards in the row to slip. So invest in something that will keep the cards in that row upright. Depending on the quality/construction of the box that you are using, I find that another small box or lexan hard holder does the trick. 

'Leaning' cards are 'Bending' cards in my boxes over the years unfortunately.

Something I found really useful for this is packing foam that you may find in computer boxes (not the styrofoam as that can often leave white bits all over the place.  Where I used to work, they once had a whole bagful of these 3 foot strips of packing foam, about 1.5 inches wide and easy to cut into whatever lengths you want.  I wish now I had taken the whole bag.

Ive saved a lot of those card savers that some people hate and use those to fill the empty spaces

I usually wait until I have a good sized stack of cards that need to be put away. I store most of my cards in 5k monster boxes. The one thing I've done is put the sets I'm activley trying to complete in their own 600 or 800 card boxes. That way I can add cards to those sets without having to go through the move a bunch of columns of cards dance. 

I leave space  and at ends I put a spacer card   and fill the gap with T Handle plastic shopping bags

I have mine in binders and a year on them to where I can see it so when a trade comes my way I know exactly which book I need to look at to locate the card. All of my vintage and pre war stuff is in my fireproof locking gun safe where the ammo goes and the ammo sits on the shelf next to my gun safes