General Forum

Coming up with priorities has been my biggest problem.  Each time I think I’ve figured it out, I change my mind shortly after starting and put the cards I had separated back where they were. 

I don't think there is any collector that hasn't done this....

I've tried to change and reorganize things enough times to think I could do a better job with a leaf blower. Darn OCD!!

My biggest struggle is feeling the need to have multiple cards for multiple collections (team sets, base sets and inserts, PC collection, etc). Totally unnecessary but if a card is in a team set for example, it doesn't feel like I have it in a PC collection. 

As others have said, whatever you decide now you may change your mind on later, so don't feel that whatever decision is made has to be final. I hope you enjoy putting cards into the binders as they'll be fun to revisit and flip through. I think organizing non-Jordans by years and brand is fine, but also think that doing other player binders of some of the non-Jordan players might be fun to do. Granted, I don't know how often you or others will want to break out the Stacey King binder, but maybe you'll be the only one to actually have one.

I probably would have done better these past few months using your leaf blower method. I just reopened for trading and have an offer for cards that I cannot locate - neither in my collection or in my traders.

I had to chime in on this thread because over the past few years, I have been on quite a journey. I have reorganized my football card collection (approximately 45,000 cards) not once, not twice, but THREE times.

I used to have them in typical set/# order, and I had my complete sets in their own separate boxes, but I realized I never pulled those boxes out of the closet and looked at my cards. The cards were just there. That wasn't how I collected as a kid, which was in binders in team->position order. I thought, "that was more fun; when did I get so serious?" So I decided to take the plunge and reorganize my ENTIRE FB collection by team, complete sets and all.

But I started running into problems, like how to sub-order them within each team and what to do with cards with multiple players from different teams. I also started having the desire to have all the cards of a certain player in one stack, even if he played for multiple teams. So...

I reorganized the whole thing AGAIN by player last name. I did the big sort (each card sorted into 26 piles A-Z) but I never finished sub-sorting each letter; I ran out of steam after a few letters. Plus, I started wanting to have them in set/# order again because I was getting more into trading on the TCDB and realized it would be much easier to enter inventory that way. So...

I put the whole collection BACK into set/# order, this time with complete sets integrated (not broken out) and I am now two sets away from having all of it entered into my TCDB Collection & FS/T list. Now that I am almost done, I find myself itching to do something different with it, but I am going to make myself live with it for a while first.

Despite the apparent madness of this, I thoroughly enjoyed the process as I got to see and touch every card in my collection at once. I also pulled out a bunch of excess that I have put into a box to give to a friend's kid who has gotten into collecting. Plus, I learned that what I really enjoy about the hobby is not having the cards, it's doing something with them. Some guys fish or play golf, but for me, a quiet corner of the house listening to a good podcast and sorting is one of my happy places. If the past 30+ years are any indication, I will probably never stop reorganizing my collection, and that is OK with me.

Binders, so many binders ...  I am primarily a team collector (Blue Jays) and I have my binders organized by card company and year. The only problem here is choosing which company on some of those years where they were buying each other out (should 2006 & 2007 Fleer go in the Fleer binder or the Upper Deck binder?).

OPC and Topps brands are simple enough, as are Fleer and Upper Deck products. I keep Pinnacle brands (including Sportflics) in their own binders. Then there is Donruss/Leaf/Playoff/Panini, which also have their own binders. And finally, there is all the oddball stuff kept neatly together in their own binders.

Almost forgot - minor league affiliates - team sets are in team bags in small plastic totes (about 20 sets per tote) and all the others have their own binder.

Now my head hurts ...

I need to make the decision on reorganizing due to a downsizing in the near future.  My designated sports area at the new place will be half the size of what I have now.  Probably most stuff will need to be in boxes.

As other's have said, it's changed over the years. Used to be by team. Then about 7 years ago I put them in order by set and year....all in binders. Started to run out of shelf space and put the non-commons in monster boxes. Now I'm running out of shelf space (and money) again so I'm going through binders and moving some collection items to FST. We'll see how many binders that is at the end. I've thought about having binders for my team PC....Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and then binders for Eck, Killebrew and Eddie Murray, but that would be another project so I think I'll just keep them in the order they're in right now and just use the comment section here to note what box or binder they are in.