I am strongly considering a monumental shift in the way I store my Cardinals cards. The timing isn't all that surprising, considering over the past two days I've received large boxes of Cards cards and I will probably be spending hours sorting through them in the coming days. Currently, as in the past, the way I store all of my Cardinals is in binders with plastic sheets, alphabetically, including doubles. I mentioned this to my girlfriend the other day, and she sounded rather surprised about the doubles. It made sense to me for awhile, as I used to only have 4 full binders worth, but now at 7 full binders plus some loose sheets and absolutely no way to hold more cards, I should probably rethink what I am doing. I liked actually looking through each binder and knowing exactly how many... I don't know... 1992 Topps Felix Jose cards I had. But it costs nearly $20 for a binder and a bundle of plastic sheets these days, so I'm thinking about doing something else. Incidentally, Ozzie Smith gets his own binder, but I only keep one of each of his cards in there. Maybe that's the way I should have been doing everything all along.
So I ask you, the team collectors out there, how do you store your cards? Should I get a 3200 ct. cardboard box for my doubles? Is there a fancier, but perhaps still efficient way of doing things?
Basil Shabazz, incidentally, never made it out of AA according to Baseball-reference.com despite having one of my favorite player names of all-time. His card is one of the many that I received the past two days, and I will be doing a post on each of those packages soon.
I started out storing my Red Sox in binders but soon found out that they can't all go in a binder. So I modified my approach. I keep my cards in binders by brand. I have a GREAT BIG BINDER that holds only topps team sets 51-08 and counting, a bunder for Fleer, Donrus, Upper Deck etc. The topps binder only gets base Topps put in it; Heritage, A&G, Stadium Club, etc get put in a different binder. So that I don't have to buy so many pages I don't bother putting a team set in a binder until I have at least half of the team set. All partial team sets I put in plastic storage boxes by year inside of a Monster box. All of my doubles get boxed and set aside in hopes that one day my 4 year old will learn to appreciate them and want them. It may not be the best way possible it it is what is working for me. I'm going to watch and see if anyone posts some better suggestions here. I would be interested to see how some of the other team collectors with lots of cards like dayf and tribe cards store theirs since I know that both have way more team cards than I do.
ReplyDeleteThis has only recently become a problem since I started a blog. I never used to sort my Dodger doubles into binders. But then I saw that other bloggers and collectors DID add their doubles. So I started adding all the doubles. I've gotten so many Dodgers that I haven't reached the point of running out of sheets/binders, etc., just because I haven't had time to sort all the cards.
ReplyDeleteI think what I'll end up doing is storing almost all the doubles (save for certain key ones) in a sturdy box of some sort.
I do not put doubles into the binders. The doubles will go into a separate box that I will trade to another Reds fan.
ReplyDeleteBasil Shabazz's career ended because of major drug problems, but he has been helped out a lot by his childhood best friend Torii Hunter.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks for the great Yankee cards!
I've developed a sorting system over the last 20 years.
ReplyDelete1. Sets each have their own binders.
2. Team sets (Cardinals, Royals, World Series teams, Division winners) have binders.
3. Extra cards are placed in team binders alphabetically and then by year/card company. Doubles are kept by team in the same order in team doubles boxes. EXCEPTION: Players who are "worthy" get their doubles kept in the binders (HOFers, future HOFers, players I really like).
4. Through the mail autographs are kept alphabetically in separate binders.
What gets difficult is adding cards when I'm keeping them alphabetically. So I have to stage areas to leave holes. After a current player, I'll leave 3 spaces. After each letter in the alphabet, I'll leave a space. After a player that has a lot of cards, even though he's not current, I'll leave a space or two.
Takes more time than my wife would like, but when it's time to send something in the mail for an autograph, it's a lot easier to find it.