General Forum

Due to a few trades sending me cards I actually already had in my collection (not many but even one is too many), I knew the time had come to reconcile my collection.  We all know how long it takes to enter a collection from scratch, then build the want list and input all our traders.  Well, thanks ot some discussions here in the Forums with members providing how they have made use of the multiple collections feature, things are a whole lot easier.

How so?

Well, to start off I created collections for each card company (still debating if I need to have a "Leaf" and "Pinnacle" collection or to just let them reside in their parent companies), and a collection for Traders only.  With these collections created, I can now go to any set in my Main Collection that I have cards of, remove all the cards on my For Sale/Trade List (this leaves my wants and haves only). I then "Move all items to" the particular collection I want them in.  I then go through my actual set and verify that I have the cards shown as having and I don't have Wants of cards I already have. Next, I go to my Traders collection for that set and enter every card I have for trade (again, I only enter 1 of any card whether I have 1 or 1,000).  The small boxes are empty here so it is just a matter of checking the box.  Once I am done, I then "Move all cards in Collection to For Sale / Trade list". My Traders being sorted by Company, Year, set, and # makes this a fairly easy process; only when there are VAR do I have to make sure I am checking the right box or see if I have more than one of the VAR.

Yes, this will still take some time.  I only started on Saturday and have the Donruss to 1987 complete and have started on my O-Pee-Chee sets.  My hope is to be completely done before I go on holidays in mid-February. When I am all done, my Main Collection will be empty, my sets collections will only show Haves and Wants (easier to scroll through), and my Traders will all be in the one collection which again, when I get more cards to trade, it will be easier to add them as the small box of those I don't have yet to trade will be empty.

When I mark a trade as received, the cards will be entered in my Main Collection.  From there I can verify that the cards I did get are now in my collection.  Once I have done so, I can transfer them to the particular Collection I want them in.  When we are looking at ones and twos, not a big deal; when there are 40-50 cards or more of any one set, it will save quite some time.

I thank those who provided responses on some of the recent threads.  Much of where I am going came from those.

Thanks for yet another example of how the multiple collections can REALLY help organization around here!

Thats a great idea.

Would you keep all sports under your manufacturer? I am in a major reorganization. Starting with sorting all boxes. 

I started something similar a couple weeks ago. I’m doing a collection for complete sets, sets over 50%, sets under 50%, favorite players, then I have separated my common traders and my cards worth more than a buck or so and unopened stuff I want to sell. Not sure if that’s going to be too confusing yet. Time will tell. So far my approach to switching things over is if I’m in dealing with a set I switch it at that time. Hopefully soon I can concentrate more on getting things moved. I was also going to use this time to renconcile everything. Good luck with yours Bruno!

I only collect Baseball and some non-sports so not a big deal for me.  If I did collect other sports, I would create a separate collecction for each one and each company (if extensive).  I do have a miscellaneous and a minors collection (if not yet, will have as I have it that way in my spread sheets).  When I went through and organized my son's MTG collection, I entered it under its own collection.

Basically, I am using the Collections feature to declutter what I have entered.  When I want to find and look at O-Pee-Chee, I can go to that collection.  Just like I do when I want to look at the actual cards.

Bru, You are the man! If I can't get my wife to help me organize, then I may have to fly you down to Houston to help out for a couple of days.

Seriously, one thing I've implemented from your advice - and I read and reread both your suggestions in the forums and the emails that you've so graciously repeated information based on the mess of an organization I have in my office - is inputting just one trader per set. I'm almost done with my Fleer box of 5K '89-'92, in fact I just finished the Fleer '92 inventory, and am down to one row of '90s and Team logos.

Re: multiple sports in same collection, one could logically combine them, because the site separates them out for you automatically already.

I can agree with that but I want my TCDB collections to reflect as close as possible the way my card collection is. I may find it too divided eventually but I figured it was easier to start doing it the way I thought would work and go from there.

Sorry Bruno, that was more of a general statement. Wasn't directed at you specifically. But it probably appeared that way.

No offense taken Dave. The reason I initiate this kind of discussion is to give others ideas on how to make use of the site's features (features that were not there when I first started). It is from others who mentioned keeping the Main Collection empty and to have a collection just for Traders that I finally took the plunge as I could see an advantage. Similar to discussions on how to organize a collection at home, these hopefully help others reduce the frustrations we have all expressed adn enjoy the hobby even more.