General Forum

     I am thinking of deleting my entire Collection and starting from scratch. I would like to hear from anyone that has done this. At, I think it's 72,000 Cards logged, I am probably only 20% into my Collection. Are there any negatives to my account other than the time spent to enter again?

     I got excited when I discovered the site and just started going crazy with entering Sets, Trade Lists, and Wantlists. My Collection is organized well, but I have often wished I would have done some things different. I have multiple stacks of Trades received that have never made it into the right spot due to time. We are in the process of moving and I have boxed all those up, with other items logged, and maybe some that haven't been logged yet. 
 

     Most of my traders are together but some are in other areas and it becomes aggravating when I know I have a Card but have to go nuts trying to locate it. That doesn't happen often but when it does, I'm sure you know. We had a two story house and my Collection was split upstairs and downstairs. The new place is one level and provides more convenient space to organize.

    I, too, have often wished with some of my Sets that I had spent more time with a smaller Wantlist to concentrate on completing those through Trades or purchases to Complete before moving on to enter more. With the move and two empty rooms to start organizing better it just seems like a good time to start from scratch. I also find myself going back and double checking Sets because I rushed entering and it seems this has hindered me from entering my Fleer and Donruss and going through some Collections I have bought over the last 2 years. So I ask does this sound crazy to do?

Short answer.... Yes.

I'm thinking the first step, rather than deleting the whole thing and losing that time already invested, organize your boxes. Personally, I have boxes labelled TCDB 1 - x, and two boxes labelled Set Building 1 & 2 (their functions are pretty self-explanitory). Of course, there's always the PC boxes (which I mostly don't care to list on here), and a few stacks of misc cards.

Organize your boxes how you'd like them, then confirm the traders alongside the website what you have already correctly entered and what needs to be done, and correct as you go. One box at a time, and patience is in order. Good luck!

I guess a few questions to ask/thoughts to consider would be:

* Do you enjoy entering the cards on here? If starting again would be a huge chore then that would be a problem.

* Do you have the time to do it?

* I would assume starting from scratch would eliminate or a least severely reduce/hinder the options for trading until you had a reasonable amount of the collection re-entered. Is this something you owuld be happy with?

* Is reorganising somehow as opposed to straight deleting going to be easier/more time efficient? (Especially if say it let you keep trading while you did it)

When I saw you post, before reading I thought "yes". But if you want delete and start over. I am organizing super slowly and adding as I do it. Just have fun with it is my thought.

Thanks for the input. I have time to think about it. I do enjoy entering Cards in the Database. When I have the fever I make plenty of time to work on the Cards. With it just being me and the wife with no children I can make the time when I want to. 

I have "started over" a time or two on here, but never with a collection that big.  I like the suggestion of organizing the cards first before you do it.  I'd imagine with more space it should be easier.  The simplest answer would be Yes, just start over, however when I did it, the collections option wasn't available (thus creating a second account).  One option to consider would be to just creating a new collection and catalog all the cards into there, then once finished, making that one your main collection.  Either way, as long as you don't mind reentering cards on here and have the time, I think either way works.  I would still lean to just starting from scratch though, that way it would be less confusing.

Hope the move is smooth, and hope you enjoy having more space for your cards.

Owww, no kids now that sounds good! What is this "time" you speak of! 

No you are not crazy; you are smart enough to recognize you are disorganized and that there has to be a better way.  My story in finding this site is almost a carbon copy of what you are saying. Eventually I asked Admin if they could delete my entire baseball collection (I did not wish to delete the other sports and non-sports as those were not a problem having so few and all for trade). He actually asked me to confirm what I was asking as I had many more cards entered than you do.  I said yes as I knew starting over would be the only way to know for sure that what I had entered was actually in my collection and that I could locate it in short time.

You are right - organization (physical and on-site) is the key. There are more tools on the site now than there was back when I re-started, the biggest one being the multi-collection option. The other that will ease the re-entry of your collection and traders is the ability to enter cards directly in for sale/trade. But before you even get started, move all your cards into one room and bring out only what you are entering at one time.  Once it is entered, go put it to its resting place IN ANOTHER ROOM! I also suggest a room for your keepers and a separate room for your traders. Personally, I have my traders in the same room as my computer because when I get a trade offer it is easier to pull the cards as they are right there in the same room (I used to have to walk the length of my house to get to some, box by box). I use multi-collections because I can keep my keepers in some individually-named collections and my traders completely apart in a "Traders" collection. This makes it easier to enter cards in the site as well.

But enough for now.  If you are interested in more of how I organized my collection, send me a message.  I am always happy to help someone who wants to be organized and wants to enjoy the hobby instead of being frustrated by it. And again, no you are not crazy.