General Forum

Hello all, I can't say enough how much I love this site. Cards I have no use for are gone, whole cards I want keep coming in the mail... It's a beautiful thing!

That being said, I've made the decision to take my collection out of top loaders and boxes and put them in binders. I want to be able to view them easier...  I am a team and player specific collector... So for instance, any Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls card is welcome in my collection. In addition, I have certain players that I PC harder than others. Of course, my namesake Ditka, Jordan, Nolan Ryan, among others.

Let's take for example my Bulls collection. Jordan's are on their own in their own binder, that's not a question. But for the rest of the team, there's obviously players that I have a large number of cards of Pippen, Rose, Rodman, etc... I'm really torn about whether I want to have one Bulls team binder with everyone sorted by year. Then by like sets if there are any. I don't necessarily have full complete team sets by product. But I might have seven of nine upper deck 1991 for example. So doing it this way. Those seven would all be together within that year. 

My other option was to separate any player I had more than 15-20 cards of and keep them together so all Scottie Pippen together all Rose together... And then all the one offs can be part of the "team" separated by year and product.

I'll be honest, I don't even know if I'm making any sense, but if I am... What are your thoughts? Am I overthinking this? Which way would you lean?

While others chime in, might I suggest you do a forum thread search as well. There are many old threads about the very thing you ask. Many new members so ideas may evolve, but plenty of advice also in those threads.

I have all my cards in 3200 count boxes organized by year and set.  Seemingly every day I am trying to come up with a system to separate some of the cards in some fashion but I can never decide on anything.  A lot of it comes down to indecision, cost, space, and time.  I’m not a set collector really, so it seems silly to have my cards this way.  But at the same time, I have a hard time separating certain teams and players from their sets.  I don’t know if I will ever come up with something different.  Still waiting for something to click in my head that figures it all out.  Until then, in the boxes neatly in order they stay.  I use a card divider as a bookmark of sorts and look through my collection that way.  Taking a little stack out at a time.  

My team collections are in binders, divided by position then sorted alphabetically. I've considered ordering them chronologically by when they made their debut with the team to display the history of the team a little better. But I decided against that because it would make it harder to find specific players if I couldn't remember exactly when they joined the team.

My entire collection was alphabetized by player until I wanted to start trading and selling.  At that point the only option is sorted by set and number.  You just don't realize how many Jeffrey Leonard cards sneak in until you see them all together, then you wonder when you started collecting Jeffrey Leonard.

I collect for the most part only HOF players and a few others so mine are in 3200 count boxes separated by player which is put in order by card number. Like you, I am starting to now want to put them in binders (which I have always not liked because of possible bending/warping of the cards) to view them easier. I am undecided. I'll probably end up putting the lower value cards in binders and keep the top loaded higher priced ones in a box. 

I'm a team collector and I keep my cards in binders sorted by year, then by set, by player alphabetically,  and finally by card number if the player has more than one card in a set. If I have seven out of nine cards in a set, I leave an empty space for the missing card.

So now that I'm home I'll try to sum up mine. I'm a set collector first and foremost and also have a sizeable PC. Because of the size of my apartment all my sets are in 800ct boxes. Would rather binder them, but.... My inserts are all in 5k boxes organized by year, brand, etc. as found in the DB. My PC are all in 5k boxes as well organized alphabetically and chronologically as found in the DB. Well, for the inserts and PC they are accounted for. All organized properly, well....

I collect a lot.

Complete sets, Phillies, HOFers, Stars, and some players I just like or had some cool cards of so I'll keep collecting him.

I had to come up with priorities.

My complete sets take the highest priority. If I'm attempting to go for the set, any cards I have go to the set. Phillies, HOFers, whoever - set first.
Phillies are next - so even Schmidt, Carlton, Roberts, Ashburn, etc. are in my Phillies binders (by year and then by company/set).
HOFers are next, so if a multi-player card is say Jim Rice & Dale Murphy (whom I collect, but is not in the HOF), the card goes into the HOF binder with Jim Rice.

I do try to get multiple copies of the cards that cover multiple people (like the Rice/Murphy example, as well as those like Paul Molitor and Robin Yount), but I have a HOFer section set aside for those cards if they exist here as only one copy. If it's a Phillie and a HOFer, goes in the Phillies binders.

Like I said, I set my "priorities", and try to stick to them. I would recommend looking at what you like to collect, and then decide what priorities you want to set. Even though I kinda PC Mike Schmidt, all of his cards are all throughout my Phillies binders. It's just the way I started, and it seemed to continue to make sense to me.

My Rockies collection is all in binders separated by player, then year, then set.  I have one binder for my small guys, guys that I have 1-3 cards of along with the manager cards and mascot cards.  The next level is any players that I have between 4-99 cards.  I have 16 binders with players in alphabetical order.  Once I get 100 cards of a player, they move up to the semi-stars binders.  I have 9 binders each with 4 players divided as equally as possible.  I try not to exceed 600 cards in a binder.  When I get to 250 cards of a player, they go into double binders with just 2 players.  When a players get around 350-400, they go into a solo binder.  600 gets the player a second binder and 1200 gets a third. 

I hope that was clear.  In my head it makes perfect sense, but sometimes the old communication skills fail me.