General Forum

Top loaders, sleeves, boxes, binder sleeves, etc...how do you decide which cards go where and how they're stored?

For my PC, I used to use a monetary value on whether the card should be in a top loader or a plastic binder page. The problem with this is that the cards of any one given player was split in between two locations. As well, the monetary value fluctuated and really was not a valid personal value. Trying to keep track of the cards I had for a player was made difficult by this process. I finally said enough was enough and moved all my player collection cards into plastic sleeves / top loaders. Yes that is a lot of top loaders but almost are there, all in the same location.

This freed up hundreds of plastic pages for my sets which allows for easy periodic viewing. The organization of my collection was the biggest benefit to this change.

My own personal thing is that I have two categories of cards:  trade fodder (or potential trade fodder) and keepers.

My trade fodder is arranged by year, product (Series 1 or 2, Heritage, Pro Debut, etc), base cards, rookies and parallels / inserts.  These all go in 3000 count boxes.  I go through them periodically and pull out any that I want to move to the Keepers pile.

The ones I classify as keepers (all Texas Rangers, any errors, short prints, etc.) get penny sleeved, top loader-ed and go in the Keepers box (3000 count) also arranged by year.  Some of my keepers are in screw-down cases since I can't afford to send them off to be graded right now.

That's just me though.

I put everything in binders unless it is graded or comes in factory case of some sort.  I have a small stack that is hard sleeves for the 'to be graded' category.  The idea is I want to be able to easily access and enjoy the cards at any time.

I do use a separate binder with wider pages for double sleeving autograph and some numbered cards.

Anything I have set to trade/sell is in boxes sorted by sport and year range if quantity is low or by the year and set.

The only thing I haven't figured out a proper place for are cards too thick to go into a binder.

Due to size restraints of my place, an apartment, I'm relatively straight forward. Mind you, I'd much rather have my sets in binders, but that ain't happening. Right now my sets are all in 800ct boxes, with smaller sized sets packed many to one. Valuable cards are in top loaders packaged with the set, though I'm rethinking that one. All inserts, PC and traders are in 5K boxes. Outside of a handful, none of those are penny sleeved or top loaded.

I have a rough set up of:

PC cards in binders

Higher "value" PC cards in top loaders.

Hall of Fame NBA players in binders with players order by year they were drafted and cards in chronological order pretty much how they are listed here.

All auto and memorabilia cards get top loaders (more OCD than value-based in many cases). So do older cards, pre-1980s, rookie cards of better HOF players and inserts/other cards I feel are cool/valuable.

This is all pretty malleable and subjective as I am sure there are many cards in my binders that have a higher book value than cards that are in top loaders.

For Me any Sort of random base that has no trade value and not in my PC goes in a random Card box, If it is a tradeable piece or Non Main PC card i put it in a bad looking extra toploader. for Any of my main PC cards i put them in nice brand new undamaged Toploaders and store them in a 3 slot box for ease of access with Labeled dividers sorted alphabetically by first name.

I use the following process

my PC (teams and players) are in 3200 count monster boxes. Teams stuff is by sport then year in penny sleeves. Player stuff is by player then year in penny sleeves. Sets I am building are in binders with empty slots for missing cards. Complete sets are boxed ((for larger sets) bagged for smaller sets which are stored neatly in monster boxes. Auto & mem cards are stored in penny sleeves and top loaders in a shoebox style card box. Graded and factory slabbed cards are in bags and stored in a graded card shoebox. Traders are in monster boxes by sport then year and auto/mem are in sleeves and top loaders in their own shoebox.

@jmkidd: So you sleeve/top load/protect everything *except* your lowest level traders...correct?

This is a fun and interesting thread.  I'm a set collector:

• I keep everything prior to 1981 in binders
• Once I get to about 70% set completion, I move that set to its own binder.  Except 1995 Fleer baseball - I can't stand that set.
• Everything else is in 3K or 5K boxes, sorted by year and then brand; this includes sets not at the ~70% threshold and traders