Card Guard

The age old question of how card collectors organize/display their cards will usually yield a myriad of different answers. Some people prefer to put their cards in penny sleeves and top loaders and then toss them in some sort of shoe box or monster box. Others will put them in 9 pocket pages and inside a binder. Others simply put a rubber band around their stack(s) of cards.

For me I prefer to use 9 pocket pages and binders for certain sets. If it's a set I plan on building most of the time it'll end up in pages inside a binder large enough to hold several years of that set. However when it comes to smaller sets I've been putting them in one of my shoe boxes inside my card house. Some of my non-sport sets that ideal for being in pages, but I only have so much room on my book shelf for bulky d-ring bingers.

A few months ago I noticed that Target had started to carry a soft binder in their trading card section called Card Guard. For $12.99 I thought I'd give it a try. I bought the only black one I could find. It was also offered in red, blue, green and yellow...at least those are the colors I saw when I made my purchase.

 This card folio is made by BCW and offers 20 pages. The cards load from the side versus from the top like a traditional 9 pocket page. The back of the page is black and has small raised dots, similar to the look/feel of a basketball. The pages seem sturdy including the pocket welds. My first impression of the card folio was "this is different...I kinda like it". I immediately thought it may be good for certain card sets, or to carry with me when I travel for work. It seemed to be sturdy overall and the elastic strap keeps the folio tightly closed.

Above you can see I started to fill up the folio with my Star Wars Rogue One set. I don't normally put cards back to back in pages, but seeing how these pages are designed to do so I filled it up. Being that you can't see the back of the card may be a deal breaker for some, but it doesn't bother me too much. I did figure it'll be more of a pain as I acquire more cards for this set as I can't easily see the card numbers on the back. I can see this folio appealing to collectible trading card game players perhaps more than sports card collectors. What do you think?

Overall I'm impressed by it's overall quality. The cards are staying put, are easy to put in the pages and the strap keeps everything fairly tight and together. I've taken it with me on a few business trips and it's come in handy. I've bought a pack of cards as I could make sure they cards would be safe inside the pages as opposed to tossing the packs into my suitcase. I don't know if I'll pick up any more, but the one I have I'm finding very useful.

Let's Talk Binders

I'm not sure if it's my un-organization that has me so worked up or just the fact that I'm excited about the new baseball season just around the corner and the new cards it brings, but I've been trying to get more and more cards sorted and placed in binders.

Just today I sat down to sleeve 2013 Gypsy Queen as I worked on my Want List and it hit me...maybe I'm using the wrong binder? I'm not talking O-ring versus D-ring. I'm using a 5 inch binder to hold on average two years worth of sets that I build...mainly Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen.

These big binders work well, but let's face it - they aren't cheap and they get heavy once fully loaded. It's also hard to turn a lot of pages at one time if I want to go to the set in the back of the binder. 

My question is for those of you that put sets or PCs in pages and binders, what do you do? Large massive binders for multiple years, like above? Or do you use smaller binders for each year of a set? If Topps made those nice padded binders for A&G and GQ each year, I'd consider buying those (even though those can be expensive). 

If you do use binders, do you stand them up or lay them down. If you lay them down, do you stack?

Currently I have about 6 of these 5 inch binders, laying flat on a bookshelf. I alternate the binders when stacking so they can kind of remain flat on the shelf, but it's starting to take it's toll on the bookshelf. Some of the shelves are sagging in the middle due to the weight...and the fact that it's a cheap particle board shelving unit.

I'm always curious to see how other collectors keep their collections organized so 1) they can enjoy the cards and 2) make it easy to find what they are looking for.

I would appreciate it if you'd share your thoughts, comments and collection/storage tips in the comment section below!