General Forum

All of my base cards under $1.50 and insert cards under $2.00 go into cardboard boxes sorted in order by Year, Set, Card#.  Any better base and inserts up to $6.00 go into Binders.  Any non-Auto or Mem over $6.00 goes into a toploader into a cardboard box I found years ago that fits toploaders perfectly sideways.  Any Auto or Mem card under $10 goes into a toploader and any over $10 go into a magnetic One Touch and those all go into a 2 row Graded card shoeboxes  Any complete or partial sets are in binders.  All of the binders and boxes currently fit on three seven foot tall six shelf bookshelves

Fist any rookie I collect will need to book for 4.00 and it will get a penny sleeve and top sleeve

2nd and auto , auto game used or game used , memborbillia card will be in a magnet holder or penny sleeve and top loader

3rd any base or insert card that books under 10.00 goes into binders and card over 10.00 goes into a penny sleeve and top loader

My collections are all over the place.

Complete sets: I'm going to say mostly in binders at this point, but I still have about 20 or so that are in boxes and need pages and binders.

Phillies: In about 10-12 various size binders, most are 2.5" or larger.

HOFers: In seven 3" binders and one 2" binder. Oh, and 1 2" or 2.5" binder of miscellany from HOF sets and magazines.

Player collections: Single binder per player usually, six 3" (red) binders for the Yzerman collection.

Stars: Retired players are starting to go in binders, some are still just in a monster box. Some cards have sleeves, most don't. Depends if they had sleeves on them when I got them more than anything else. Or if I just don't want them to get scratched in the box. Current players are in the same box, just separated. Cards in the box are in chronological order and then alphabetical by company/brand within the year. I don't follow TCDB listings - I do base cards, parallels, inserts, no matter the naming. (So, yes, base, Gold, Purple, then Future HOFer, Sluggers, etc.) When players are moved into the binders they go in the pages in that order. As new cards are received, they go the back. Occasionally, I'll pull all the cards out of the pages and do a re-order (I did this with several of the HOFers as I was logging them because I missed some along the way and it was the only way I could figure out what I messed up), but mostly the last couple pages are quite the mix.

Extra commons: All are in 5,000-count monsters (I have 18 to 20 of those). (I define common as a player *I* don't collect.)

Extra Stars/HOFers: In monsters - they take up about 1 1/2 of the monsters (the other half are the stars and retired stars that are not yet in pages).

Extra Phillies: Overflowing a monster - I have several that are in a 3,200-count shoe (but only taking up about 1 row of the 3) that need to be integrated with the 5,000-count box. So, I guess tha means I have about 6,000-7,000 extra Phillies cards. (Mostly base from the "over-produced years.)

Star Company cards: I have 1 of each in plastic tote boxes. They went in there about 20-25 years ago. One of thee days, I'll pull them out. Extras are in verious boxes, and I still don't know what I have left. (I sold a ton on ebay in 1999-2001.)

SwamiLee FS collection: Mostly in shoes, in whatever protection they were in coming from Lee's.

You may have noticed, never in any of this is "value" or "book value" used. I have a 1991 Classic set in pages (my son did that) where even though they are the junky BCW pages, the pages cost more than the set. Value is not really taken into consideration. I try to sleeve most of the cards I put into the extras (Stars/HOFers), but not the Phillies (oh, the Phillies extras do not include the HOFers or Rose). Like I said, it's ALL OVER THE PLACE. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm just returning after many years away, finally got my cards organized in boxes and am currently moving toward the following:

Complete Sets - Binders.  I've moved two complete sets into Ultra Pro binders and pages.  Not the cheapest storage option, but they're bringing me a lot of joy to look at.  

Team Sets -  I'm working on Braves Topps Team sets currently.  Right now they are in a box organized by year.  Ultimately, I want to move these into 2-3 binders, organized alphabetically (still trying to decide what to do with the Update/Traded cards...mix them with the rest of the year's cards or put those at the end of the year).

Player Collection - Toploaders and sleeves, either in a shoe box or in various stacks around my office.  

For Sale/Trade.  Random sets I may never complete - These are all kept together in boxes organized by Set/Year

I don't have anything super valuable.  I want to organize my collection in a way that leads to maximum enjoyment. 

Depends on what the card is for me.

For Topps Baseball, Topps Football, Topps Hockey and UD Hockey base sets that I collect each has its own binder.

For any other sets that I collect they are placed in a single box size depends on the amount of cards in the set. Then the box is stored in a large plastic bin.

For duplicates I store them all in penny sleeves then in 5 row boxes. I put 600 cards per row in the boxes and have them sorted by year, make model, and number. Right now I am working on my 22 one of these, hopefully I can get back to trading again soon.

For Memorabilia cards, I use 4 row box. In that box I have a row for Autographs which all get placed in penny sleeves. A row for relic cards, and finally a row for patch cards. The last one is now into its second row.

For the 4 players I collect Mantle, Marino, Mario, and Earnhardt I have another 4 row box with each player having their own row. On these though if the first card is part of a set I collect it goes there. Once I get my first dup of that card it goes here.

Finally I have everything else or what I call Randoms. Every card goes into a penny sleeve then into a 4 row box that i put 500 cards per row. So 2000 cards per row and working on my tenth box. The boxes are then staked on top of each other like the duplicates.

I need to find a little more room as the duplicates stacks are getting to high and I need to find a spot to start a 3rd stack.

My collectin is partially organized.  I store set in individual boxes.  I have working sets in 2, 3-row boxes.  Dups in 4, 5-row boxes.

I've separated my singles into autos, relics, player, and team sets into 2-row boxes.  Typically these cards are in penny selves and top loaders.

 I have my collection split between 2-closets but am re-organizing to fit it inot one.  I am also starting the process of breaking my flagship complete sets into team sets that I will eventually try to move (downsize my collect for space reasons)

I store my Yankees and player collections in 3 ring binders, but the bulk of my collection is organized by set in 3,000 count 3-row boxes.

Are you moving anytime soon? 

Seems like a funny question but we've moved three times (one move to Arizona and then a move back to Colorado) in the last two years to give you some background and to explain where I am now with my storage. 

I had my collection in binders for many years but keeping the cards in an unfinished basement, I found that the binders got extremely dirty/dusty and you need sturdy shelving to place them on. I think every plastic shelf I used ended up warping over time (metal is the way to go but they are not cheap nor light for the nice ones)..

I then moved my sets into the appropriate sized BCW boxes (800, 600, whatever) and kept my duplicates in 5000 count Monster boxes. Moving close to (50) 5000 count Monster boxes out of a basement and then onto a moving truck was no fun. Yes, I had way too many cards at one point. The smaller count boxes were easy to put into plastic bins and move though. 

I'm down to (4) 5,000 count Monster boxes for traders and am moving my sets into 3200 count boxes as we speak because we have at least 1-2 more moves ahead of us in the next year or so. While the 5000 count boxes are nice, they get to be heavy lugging around. 

I also enjoy having my sets in the 3200 count boxes because its much quicker to file away cards that you receive in trades..

Many options though!

People have seen me answer this before. All complete sets are in binders, by year, sorted into teams, with team cards, followed by managers, followed by HOFers, followed by my favorite players. They are alphabetical in the binder by team city. That's 1969 to 2019 Topps base sets, and a bunch of Traded Sets, and all the Gypsy Queen short sets (no short prints). The sets I'm working on are in binders in numerical order, but closer at hand. That's 1951-1968, which is only five binders. All of my non-Topps are on display in one way or another -- three major wall hangings, one shelf. 

It's easy on purpose. I do not collect specific players or 57 different kinds of sets. I am fortunate to have a walk-in attic with adequate shelving for all the binders. 

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Look up Unikeep binders I think they may be close to what you are describing. That is what I use.