General Forum

I am going to undertake a massive reorganization of my collection that is now located in my basement, office, under bed and under my desk. The goal is to organize into different strorage options to better identify cards I am wanting to trade or sell and cards for my PC. 

Ultimately have all my tradelist located in the basement on shelves or other storage system. My PC located in my office. 

Any idea of what is in my collection. 

My collection;

1. I have cards that are listed under every catagory except MMA. 

2. Graded Cards

3. Binders, boxes of cards

4. Sets, and partial sets in binders and boxes

5. Cards are stored in top loaders, one-touches, penny sleaves and raw.

6. Oversized cards up to 8x10 sizes. 

So the full range of cards and storage. Would like to narrow down and streamline. 

The question I have is getting ideas on how to store the cards and if anyone has pictures of their collection stored, displayed or other options?

Any HELP or guidance would be appreciated. 

Mark

I don't know how much help I would be for most.  I have mentioned it before a lot of times but this subject comes up a lot.  About a year and a half ago, Billy Kingsley shared with me how he stores his cards and I have emulated that.  May not be the popular method, but I don't use any pages or toploaders.  All my cards are stored in order in 3200 count BCW boxes.  I used to keep them on a shelf in my bedroom closet, but I started worrying about the weight.  I ended up buying a wire industrial shelf for them back in February.  Funny enough, I literally just put it together last weekend and now it holds all my cards in my office at home.  

I currenty have two boxes for basketball and two boxes for baseball.  I have another box that I am filling up with any 2nd copies of cards I get for my 1 year old son- half basketball and half baseball- in case he ends up wanting to collect when he is older.  

I have a shoebox with any 3rd or more copies of cards that I plan to either trade or give away.  

I have to be honest, I have had the itch to get pages and toploaders but I often change my mind back.  I even was thinking about toploaders for inserts and star rookie cards today.  I keep going back in forth trying to weigh the option of having all my "special" and "valuable" cards all together vs having everything in proper order by set. 

At the end of the day, I think the cost savings and space savings of using my current method continues to be my best option.  

Before I quit collecting, I was basically doing what Sahal does, except I would put a card in a sleeve or toploader if it was worth protecting,  or had a black border.  But even those were mixed in the boxes with the loose cards.

You just saw my newest addition to my storage options, so I won't be of any help here. I use a range of storage options though. Most cards are in albums, but a bunch are in cardboard or plastic boxes. Some are stored in framed displays and a few more are on display in cases sitting on plate-holders. All albums and boxes are in metal shelf systems or wooden bookshelves. EXCEPT, my entire PC of MLB, NASCAR and NFL have a new home. Mark has already seen it, but if anyone else is interested, here's my Flickr account with the pics:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/153226553@N05/

It is a plastic cabinet re-inforced with steel tubing for the shelves and sides. They are quite expensive (a few hundred dollars), but I lucked into mine and got it for free. I still have room to add more stuff in there too. I'd like to get a few more shelves to go in it so the albums aren't stacked so high, but I'm not gonna complain about something I got for free.

EDIT: BTW, the cabinet is 6 feet tall, 3 ft. wide and 22 inches deep.

Mark,

Not sure "disorganized" ~Bob~ can offer much advice, but here goes some thoughts.

I'm at 4 rooms and holding. [Not in any order]

Rm#1 - Strictly sorting: Trays, boxes, labels, dividers etc. I do share the room with my trains as well. It's also my EAGLES room. It's a pretty big basement room.

Rm#2 - Personal Collection of Football and Baseball:   The room has 5 bookshelfs, 4 wall shelfs, large cabinet, under stairway storage, heavy duty rolling commercial wire rack system, small desk, large computer desk, 3 sorting tables [2 foldable] . Cards are stored in different count boxes, albums, mostly sets chronologically. Tradable "stars" are alphabetically arranged by name. Most Oddball Stuff is housed separately in 1 of the bookshelfs. I have printers and laptops geared strictly for the cards. I am networked to my upstairs room [#4] for ease of sending up and down without walking it.

Rm#3 - Basketball, Hockey and Monster Storage Boxes:  I decided to only collect RCs and HOF of Basketball and Hockey and help reduce the collection. Mostly the rest I've been selling/trading off. There must be over 100 monster boxes of sell/trade baseball cards stored here as well. Another computer desk, holds the Periodicals [Tuff Stuff etc.] . My extra Fleer Stickers, UD Holograms, Score Trivia etc are stored in another rolling cabinet. Oh and my Hess Trucks are on display here.

NOTE: The basement rooms are envronmentally controlled temperature, humidity etc. NO SMOKING EVER.

Rm#4 - The upstairs Office Room: is the brains of everything. There is some minimal storage, the overall Fleer Sticker Collection, Most Non-Sport Cards, Topps Heritage and supplies. This room also handles all in coming and outgoing orders. Ebay, Sportslots and TCDB have their own bins for easy handling. The main desk computer, basement laptops and a bedroom laptop are all networked together to keep track of everything in 1 place. Shipping labels are printed using 2 networked printer/scanners. There is also a top of the line scanner as well as an ADF for "rapid scanning". The Office is equipped with every supply necessary for a smooth operation.

That's just the rooms, i surely missed something, if interested in labeling, color coding  that I use that's another chapter.

~BOB~

Wow, Bob, sounds like you have a big operation. Do you own a seperate house just for this operation? LOL

I appreciate everyones input. Always looking for pictures or ideas for storage. 

Mark

For me the plastic pages and binder just take up too much space.

Personally, except for my few graded cards, I exclusively keep my cards in pages and binders, but I'm VERY spefiic about what I use - I only use Avery EZ-D Heavy Duty binders, 5" or 6", because of the large storage capacity and the extremely gentle slope on both sides of the ring, which prevents page curling. For sheets, I only use UltraPro Platinum. I have 5 such binders so far. The only exception is a small 1" binder I have for my local AHL hockey franchise. I'd show you some pictures, but I'm not sure if you can attach images here. 

Mark, normal 5 BR house with a full basement. I would luv to send pics but each room would need a bit of sprucing up. See......this my 2nd year of this undertaking....Beware....it's not an overnight thing uless you are just reorganizing a cabinet. lol.

I keep my personal collection in binders with each set getting its own binder. I have combined some of my vintage non-sports into a single binder based on theme. For instance, all Arm & Hammer sets are combined into one binder. My "traders" are mostly stored in BCW card houses. They are sorted by sport, brand, and year. I like the 800 count boxes with removeable lids much better than the "flip-top" style. They make pulling cards easier. For sets on my trade list in which I have over 1,600 cards, I use 3,200 count boxes. I also have a couple sets in 5,000 count monster boxes.

Here's a couple pic's. It is a work in progess. I use the file cabinet to store collecting and shipping supplies. 3,200 count boxes and larger plus all unsorted cards are stored on a large industrial shelving unit.