General Forum

I think  mzeniko and BSwagger has said 90% of it.

It makes a difference what your overall collecting goals are. 

what are you trying to use the db for?  

sticking with one organization method.

need to nail down the organization first

One thing I would ask you.  How are they sorted now.  That may help you in time and effect in the long run and on that you decide on doing.

After that is done then you can get into the details.

ripkencards wrote:

Do you keep everything or get ride of commons?

When I started paring my collection down, (pre TCDB), I gave about 30K cards to the local Little League, Boys and Girls Club, and my brother who is a 4th grade teacher. They were mostly commons from '81-'90. Just doing that really helped me clear some space and more importantly, my mind. My collection is now focused and easier to enjoy. All Topps sets (Baseball, Football & Basketball) from 1968 to 1986 are in binders for easy viewing.  All other sets are in a combo of 3500 & 5000 count boxes organized by year.  All my 50's and 60's cards not in binders are penny sleaved in 3500 boxes by year. I also PC Hall of Famers and they are in binders organized alphabetically by decade. And finally, my Dodgers collection is in both binders & 3500 boxes. Two binders for dodger all stars & favorites, one dedicated to 50's/60's and one for 70's. All of the 80's forward are in the 3500 boxes.  You just have to ask yourself, what part of your collection do you really enjoy and pursue that path.  That will certainly help everything else fall into place. Good luck and try to remember, this hobby is place for us to escape to, not to run from. 

you took a pic of my room

I am always looking for hockey cards for minor team, euro teams, colleges and major sets. The Ultimate Hockey card catalog of one card for every set is over 6000 different, need more LOL

Easy, just do what I do. Take handful of cards randomly and stuff the boxes full. Then move all the boxes into the garage, basement, and/ or closet and turn the lights off, done. 
 

But seriously, the cards that are organized are by year and set. PC is sorted by who I like more. Top loaded and in boxes for the valuable ones and in binders for the lower value cards. 

Higher end cards are top loaded and organized either by set or alphabetical by last name and sport. All slabs go into a graded card box.

Sets are in binders and numerical numbered. 

the other thing I was thinking is an overall box sort to make sure like things are together such as

these 5 boxes are football

these 5 boxes are basketball

these 2 boxes are fleer baseball

these 5 boxes are topps baseball (by decade)

this box is misc baseball 

then you can set smaller goals like one (favorite) category to focus on and not worry about the others for now.

I would hate to dive in adding cards to database if a certain set could be in 3 or 4 different boxes

mark 

I line up my collection alphabetically according to height. I’m also constantly trying every new variation on penny sleeves so I have dozens of different combinations of various widths and heights and I’ll sometimes arrange different “blocks” of them according to their batting side (width) and spot in the order (this is ordered by which is the clearest to foggiest sleeve.). I’ve also got a thing about all the way the cards line up so when I got all these older sets that looked like little TVs they were bigger so I had to lay down some of my thicker paninis as a guide to cut them down right. That got it pretty close and then I could hold it with a card from my youth and just cut a tiny sliver off each one to make it flat. Which reminds me I recently acquired a bunch of Allen Ginter stuff that I’ll need to get the old lefty safety Scissors and make some headway on making all my many old collection fit the size of my new cards. So I’ll check in later and see if you got any better system than mine. I’m always willing to change to a totally new system if it makes any more sense. Randy

Of course I was joking with him. No offense meant at all!

That is truly overwhelming! Just looking at it makes me curl up in the fetal position. Good luck to you!

Easy answer: Let me do it!!  :-)

I have reorganized my collection so many times because that's the part I enjoy the most. I know everybody's different, but having them "done" doesn't give me near as much pleasure as the process of taking a big box of chaos and putting it into order. 

On the practical side, if you are planning on putting any of your cards on your For Sale/Trade list on TCDB, absolutely you should organize THOSE cards by year/set/card number so you can find them easily when you do a trade.