General Forum

Space is at a premium for me, so I’m always looking for storage tips. 

Currently, I only collect Pittsburgh Pirates (just over 10,000 of them, so far).  I keep my team sets in hard cases w/ label, keep them in boxes organized by brand, then by year. 

For jersey/auto/mem inserts, it is hard sleeves (but I have no idea how I want to chronicle them).  I also hard sleeve my pre-70 vintage (even when building the team sets).

Another problem is what to do with the quintillion inserts and variations that I get.  I like the idea of keeping rainbows in binders but that throws off the team set building.

Binders aren’t really an option for things except for oddball sets (beef jerky discs, etc).  

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially when it comes to the inserts and how to categorize/order them. 

Thanks!

If you are storing your inserts and special cards separate, I would suggest just having them in the same order that they appear when you go to your collection and choose “Sets”.  My entire collection is in the same order as the TCDB has them.  Makes it very easy to find a card. 

As far as physical storage, I use what I would probably think is an unpopular method.  I’m pretty sure only one other person stores cards the way I do and he is he one I learned it from.  All my cards are stored naked in BCW white boxes.  I have two 3200 count boxes for basketball and two for baseball right now.  I don’t use any plastics to store my cards.  I only use the boxes and BCW foam pads to keep cards in incomplete rows packed nicely without falling over or moving.  I only use sleeves and top loaders for transporting cards either in person or by mail. 

This has saved me a ton of space, and I don’t need to spend money on supplies that can go to new cards.  All my cards seem to be in great condition too, really making me wonder what the need for so much protection is.  I might feel a little different if I was in to selling cards instead of just collecting.