General Forum

I currently have my entire collection of cards in 3200 count boxes in TCDB order.    Per the advice of Billy, I haven’t used any plastics for about 4 years as I was told plastics can eventually damage your cards.  

My dilemma has always been though, that mixed in with the bulk of my cards are cards I would like to look at and show to people more.  And even though I’m not a card merchant, I am aware that some of my cards hold more value than the others.  

So I have been thinking about separating all my cards that feature star players, and also all the cards of my teams that I am a fan of.  But how to store these has been something I have been thinking about.  Even though I have been going the no plastic route for a while, I’m always nervous when handling my cards and also want to be able to show my cards without worrying about dirty fingers etc.  

I thought I could either put them all in pages and binders, all in toploaders, or a combination of the two for cards too thick for pages.  But the more I think about how many cards this would be, probably a couple to a few thousand, I started thinking this would cost way too much money and take a lot of space.  Especially if I leave pages not completely full to mark the ends of sets and start the next set on a new page so I don’t have to move every single card in their pages when I get new cards.

But then I thought, maybe I should just penny sleeve all those cards instead and put them in smaller single row boxes so they can be looked through easier, and they can be handled with a bit more protection.  All my cards that didn’t “qualify” can stay in the 3200 count boxes raw.  

Anyone have any tips for me as I guess I am wanting to have a special “showcase” part of my collection without having to spend a ton more money.  Do you think penny sleeves might be the simple solution to protecting these cards better?  

First off, I think modern storage products are much safer than what we had in the 80s and 90s.

That being said, I think that penny sleeves and a separate box for whatever cards meet your criteria sound like a good, safe plan.  It gives your collection a personalized feel.  Albums are ideal, but like you said, that's an expensive, space-consuming route.  But it's totally understandable to want to showcase your favourites, and not stick them in boxes where they are just another card in a big set.  From memory, I think you're a Suns fan, so you probably don't want your nice Steve Nash cards or whoever, put away with Todd Fuller and Vitaly Potapenko, just because they're in the same set.  Put them in a place where you can enjoy them, and by all means protect them.  It also prevents bricking.

I use binders for my team sets (everything else is in 5000-ct boxes).  Probably have 15 binders right now.  You're right about the wasted space, though.  I leave room a lot of times so that, as I acquire more cards in a team set, I can insert them without having to move everything around.  

I use UltraPro Platinum pages and try to take advantage of Amazon sales (thanks to whoever has been posting those in here).  I'll buy a 100-ct couple boxes at a time.

Definitely not the cheapest way to go, but my son and I like to flip through the cards and he gets a kick out of filling out a page or team set.  

I have 3 main parts to my collection. My player collections my sets I'm building and my trader/for sale(I trade on here and sell on Sportlots). For my player collection they are all stored in penny sleeves and the cards over worth over $5ish in top loaders. These cards right now are in a couple 3200 count boxes sorted as they are listed on here by player. My sets are in there own boxes. A few are in binders. I had thoughts of putting all my completed sets in binders but that's a low priority at this point. My for sale cards are all in monster boxes with cards over 50 cents in penny sleeves and cards over $5 in top loaders. I personally feel fairly comfortable using penny sleeves and pages that are good quality as long as they are stored in a climate controlled area and not exposed to a lot of sun. 
For what it's worth I recently bought a binder full of late 70's cards. The pages were super crusty and sticking together. I haven't pulled all the cards out yet but the ones I have pulled were fine. These are all the old school low gloss cards so I'm sure that helps. If it was a binder full of stadium club I'd probably be screwed. 

Haha yes Switzr, I am a Suns and Diamondbacks fan.  Put I guess since I plan on putting all my Suns cards with special cards, by default even Dragan Bender or Alando Tucker are getting in ahead of Potapenko- which could be debatable.  

I had initially planned on doing just inserts of star players and rookie cards of star players, but I want to keep the system uniform.  Like a base card from 86-87 Fleer of Kareem is probably going to be a more special card than a Front Row Seat card of Russell Westbrook from a newer Hoops release.  I think I even have a Clifford Robinson trivia card insert that I’m sure isn’t more valuable than a base Michael Jordan Finest card.  Especially true if we are talking vintage baseball.  

So I decided to just have it to where I include all cards of star players, base cards and all.  Especially since some subset cards are pretty cool too.  Then it captures SPs and the like too.  And then add all my Suns and Dbacks cards for good measure.  

I discovered small plastic crayon boxes at Wal Mart a couple of years ago. They are perfect for storing 50 penny sleeve cards. They are designed to be stackable. I have carried 10 at a time upstairs to my office. I put Insert Sets, Extra Team Sets, and just Extra Cards of Favorite Players in them. My Sets go in Ultra Pro Platinum Pages in Binders. More valuable Cards go in Top Load with an index Card in the page to show where that more valuable Card would have been. I had a 2005 Justin Verlander RC in a page in a binder. I took it out in 2018 and sent it in to PSA and it came back a GEM MINT 10. It had been in that page 13 years. Also I have two rooms fixed up downstairs used as a Man Cave/Card Storage. I run a dehumidifier but they are not climate controlled. I worried to start but my Cards have been down there 17 years now with no issues.

You named it, I've used it. Trying to explain my 4+ Room organization would take pages and pages. I plan to finish before I die ! Anyway....

Each room houses different parts of my collection. Sorting stations, computer/printer/scanner access a must. Trading inventory is separated from the collections. All rooms are climate controlled, therefore most cards are in tip top shape. I do use newer storage but can't possibly replace the older storage. Maybe Someday but not a must. My most recent storage method are the crayon boxes and deck boxes, luv them, for small sets and they hold soft sleeves as well. Cheap, color coded and different kinds.

My upstairs office/ CardRoom is where I pack and mail trades etc. Where Main desktop, main scanners, label maker and all mailing supplies and off-TCDb records are kept. I also keep ongoing projects in this room, All organized in Card Houses, and on bookshelves.

I could keep going on but as I said it would take a book to name players, teams, etc. I should mention, I've been working on a You Tube video to upload eventually.