General Forum

I’ve been going back and for a while on what to do with my collection for storage. I mainly want to be able to look through and show my cards easier without worrying about damaging them.  Currently all my cards are organized in BCW boxes raw.  

Having them all in pages and binders isn’t really realistic for me.  So I decided to move all my star player cards into penny sleeves and smaller boxes.  I started that last night. 

But I quickly realized I don’t have much time for the hobby anymore, so going through and separating cards would take a long time. Also, splitting cards from their sets also means I have to keep up on it and can never be inactive anytime new players become stars or I might lose track of the system.  

So back in year and set order they went.  But now I am wondering if it might be best to just penny sleeve every card so they are all better protected when handling.  Then I don’t have to take as much time organizing and keeping on top of it.

Long story short, anyone penny sleeve all of their cards or is that excessive?

The great thing about collecting is there aren't any rules. You get to do things your way. It sounds like you've given it some thought so go for it. They do take up some space (i believe 5-6 penny sleeves equals the thickness of 1 standard card) so take that into account when sleeving all cards in the monster boxes.

I'm working on it.    Except my wrestling cards, which will go in albums.  I have enough sheets for all the cards in my wrestling collection.  Which are (arguably) my favorite cards.  Penny sleeves for the rest.  Not doubles I guess, but the rest of them.  Also, I had started doing this a couple years ago and paused the effort, so I already have thousands in penny sleeves.

It's something I've often thought of doing for my sets collection. I currently store them in 800-count cardboard boxes, and figure penny sleeving each card would be far less expensive than transferring the cards to binder pages. The cards would be protected from three types of damage I worry about: 1.) wear and tear from taking them out to thumb through them, which I like to do every now and then, 2.) sticking together or "bricking", and 3.) long term discoloration from the boxes - I've noticed certain white cardstock (1990 Fleer comes to mind) over time develops light brown stains along the edges that are in constant contact with the cardboard. Not really noticable on individual cards, but really noticable when the cards are all together in a box.

My number one concern that has stopped me from going ahead with penny sleeving is the extra space required. A typical set would no longer fit in an 800-count box, which would completely mess up my current organization system.   

I do.  Penny sleeves don't cost much and really don't add that much extra space.  

For my personal collection I go a bit more and top load them as well and keep them in the 2600 ct 3 row boxes.

I personally wouldn't find the cards very enjoyable that way.  But again, whatever makes someone happy with their own collection is the best way to go about it.

The three sets I'm working on completing; 1965, 1968, and 1971 are all penny sleeved. 

Also, I've never purchased penny sleeves and I have A LOT of penny sleeves. I am currently throwing away penny sleeves as I receive them.

My Heritage collections are kept in monster boxes. I penny sleeve the SP cards. Makes them easy to locate, and the commons are easy enough to replace if something were to happen to them during handling. Same with any sets stored in boxes : Allen & Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Archive or Topps brands.

Aside from my few completed sets, all cards get sleeved.