General Forum

For me the hardist and most time consuming thing is keeping organized. My collection I keep my Tigers in binders alphabetical by player and then there are a few other random players I like, I also put in binders based on when they played (current players in the same binders and retired players based on how long ago they played all alphabetical. I keep my commons that I dont collect in 5000 ct boxes and then the players that I like not worthy of binders in 3000 ct boxes so I can sleve the RC and more valuable cards. The cards that are $10 or more I put in top loaders and store in a box. What I wanted to say was that recently I bought a couple of the card house storage boxes that fits 12 800 count boxes and they have been great with helping organize. I also bought the 800 count boxes that are two piece with the topps, you just slide the box out, take the top off and insert your cards. Its been good for sets and other random cards. (Hope this make sence, having a one year old try to help type has been a challange)

I am a set collector.  All of my cards are in binders.  When I originally started putting the cards in binders 25+ years ago, I put cards in back-to-back, 18 cards per page, so you couldn't see the backs of the cards.  I thought this was a good idea because I could save money on the plastic pages.  I put the teams in alphabetical order based on division, mirroring the display of standing you'd see in the newspaper.  So, for baseball, I'd have the American League East -- Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, etc. followed by the American League West, National League East and then National League West.  Players are stored alphabetically by last name.  It worked for me.  Then came realignment, which messed up my strategy, unless I wanted to store my cards based on the divisions that existed for the year of the cards.

Joining this site last year has renewed my interest in the hobby and has gotten me started on reorganizing my collection.  I am slowly reorganizing my sets in team alphabetical order as displayed from the Teams link.  My one small complaint about baseball team alphabetical order on this site is that St. Louis comes after San Diego and San Francisco.  Should it be Saint Louis or St. Louis? This is an internal debate I have as I reorganize and ultimately I side with the order used on this site.

I am buying all new plastic pages, which are much thinner than the ones I originally bought.  I am storing the cards so I can see the front and back.

I love reorganizing because I spend time looking at the cards, reading the backs and learning things I didn't previously know.  I have two shelves in a closet that can store all the binders of my 30,000+ card collection.

My strategy works great until I realize I have a card out of order.  I am working on my 1975 Topps baseball set and as I was putting my Padres cards in new pages I came across Nate Colbert emblazoned with the word Tigers on top of card.  My heart sank.  Maybe this is an uncorrected error.  I didn't remember Nate playing for the Tigers.  I looked up the card on the site.  Drat!  No UER listed.  I guess Nate must have been traded or signed as a free agent, but I just overlooked it and put him in with the other Padres.  So, all of my cards from Detroit to San Diego are now off by one slot that I'll need to fix.  I'll just wait for my OCD to kick in on some Saturday afternoon and I'll move Nate to his rightful spot between Gates Brown and Joe Coleman and slide each card over one slot.

As a fan of collecting this is nothing to moan about.  It's an opportunity to spend more time with my cards.

Yep, Tigers picked up Nate for the start of a forgettable 1975 season (we lost 102 that year). I remember he started well hitting a grand slam in the 3rd game of the season vs. New York, but went on to hit just .147 in 45 games before going to Montreal. Ahhh the 70's.....

I always sort/alphabetize St. Louis as "Saint Louis". "St." is an abbreviation for saint. The city was named after Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France.