Do you prefer binders or boxes?

[homerunhitter]

Do you prefer storing your collection in binders or in top loaders/card savers in a box? Looking for ideas and thoughts on this. Thanks

[BearBailey]

I prefer boxes. Binders have too many opportunities for bends for me?

[Elberson]

I’m a box guy myself….

[Gorditadogg]

I would prefer binders that hold #1 size card savers, but until someone here starts marketing those, I am keeping my cards in double shoeboxes.

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[Gorditadogg]

Double post

[Republicaninmass]

The real "purists" would argue someone who just collect cards.....would use a rubber band. Myself, box is best. Too many issues with the cards sticking to the pages and digging corners putting them up

[seanofjapan]

Binders.

As a set collector I love leaving empty pockets in the pages for the cards I still need. Its so satisfying to fill those empty spots in one by one, you can actually see your progress with every card you get.

Sets in a box don’t give you that feeling - a box with 386 cards in it looks the same as one with 385 in it…..

[Bigdaddy]

Binders for my sets, two row 'shoe boxes' for anything else including extras.

[jayshum]

My Topps sets from 1952-1956 are in binders since they don't easily fit in regular size boxes. From 1957 to 2023, they're in boxes.

[G1911]

I only have 1 set in a binder, the rest in shoeboxes, sometimes the 2 row made for cards and sometimes literal shoeboxes. Most sets without any sleeves, tobacco cards usually gets penny sleeved but post-war vintage all raw.

I like the binder presentation, but I like to add misprints, miscuts, blank backs and variations to my sets, which means I have to constantly take all the cards out and put them back in to add a new card in its slot, so they don't work for me, but if I built only a base set with a pre-determined exact list, I'd use binders a lot more.

[Zach Wheat]

Answer used to be binders, but now that the value component is becoming an important aspect, I am slowly switching to penny sleeves and top loaders. I don't use too many card savers as I have damaged too many corners.

However, I prefer binders and being able to look through the set easily

[JollyElm]

Binders for the ease of flipping through them to check out sets and groupings of things.
&
Boxes that are chock full of mishmashes of random stuff, and you never know what 'forgotten' cards you're suddenly going to come across. (Particularly love the cheap, decorative photo storage boxes from Michael's.)

boxofcards.jpg

[Zach Wheat]

Darren,

We need a word for your collecting style.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Darren,

We need a word for your collecting style.

My girlfriend dismissively calls it very "Elmsian," and I call her a whore to balance it out. Good times!!

[David W]

My sets from 1970 on are in binders

Easier to look through them.

Any valuable cards are in a penny sleeve in the page

[irv]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

My girlfriend dismissively calls it very "Elmsian," and I call her a whore to balance it out. Good times!!

LMAO. TFF.

You're a character, Jolly, but in a good way.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Boxes that are chock full of mishmashes of random stuff, and you never know what 'forgotten' cards you're suddenly going to come across. (Particularly love the cheap, decorative photo storage boxes from Michael's.)

I honestly have no ideas how many of these mishmash boxes I own...it's an absolute ton.

My son loves to sit and search them for treasures, then ask if he can have it. lol.

[deweyinthehall]

As I work to complete a set, I keep it in a box while it's 'under construction', but once a set is complete it goes in a binder.

I just enjoy paging through albums - seems an easier way to view a collection.

If I have trouble sleeping, I'll go grab a random binder and 'read' it to make myself tired. Seems to work.

[Exhibitman]

four pocket pages hold Card Saver I and Card Saver III (tall boys) very nicely.

I store most of my postwar cards in Card Saver I's inside the boxes they came in, which I put inside carrying cases that I had left over from the time I accumulated stacks of slabs in 2009-2013. Oddball stuff goes into binders. Slabs are in boxes; not much to do with those. My small cards are stored in mylar sleeves in 9-pocket pages. They fit perfectly and look great. I tend to collect low grade so I am not as crease-paranoid as I could be.

[Kutcher55]

I prefer boxes for pretty much all of my collection with the exception of my 1975 mini set, which is the only complete set I presently own. I use a combination of a binder for the raw cards and then as you can see if the card is graded, I print a digital photo and replace the card with the photo and then store the graded cards in the BCW supervault (photo #3). I came up with this on my own although I am aware it has been previously invented. It's a fun process although it isn't the most elegant solution. For one, my photos don't include a photo of the back. I suppose I could do that but I don't want two separate pieces of paper in there and it's not worth the trouble to figure out how to print multi-sided. Not sure it would work anyways. Right now I'm up to around 60 graded cards. I don't know how many I'll ultimately end up with although I don't intend to have 660 graded cards; otherwise the album is rendered useless. You can see 7 of the 9 cards on page 1 are graded which is a bit silly, although that is an exception to the rule. The average sheet contains 1 graded card.

[darkhorse9]

I've posted this before.
Binders all the way for my complete sets

[Griffins]

Binders with slipcovers, and plexi front and back to avoid any sagging or bending.

https://www.archivalmethods.com/prod...RoC5JQQAvD_BwE

[jchcollins]

Binders went out for me as a kid. Just too much stuff that is not necessarily part of a set or tightly grouped collection, and for whatever reason as an adult collector - I like stacks and piles and flipping and random organization; playing with my cards - better than I do the tight order of a binder.

My slabs are all in one box for slabs. My cards in One Touches or other mags are all in another box. My cards still only in toploaders or card savers are in a 3rd and 4th box. Even my 1971 Topps complete set, yes all 752 of them - are in two boxes full of toploaders. The expense might not make sense, (the weight of the boxes sure doesn’t) but I simply didn’t want them in a binder. It’s fair to say that I have an extreme dislike of binders these days.

I know, I know - they never really did anything to me…


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[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Binders went out for me as a kid. Just too much stuff that is not necessarily part of a set or tightly grouped collection, and for whatever reason as an adult collector - I like stacks and piles and flipping and random organization; playing with my cards - better than I do the tight order of a binder.

My slabs are all in one box for slabs. My cards in One Touches or other mags are all in another box. My cards still only in toploaders or card savers are in a 3rd and 4th box. Even my 1971 Topps complete set, yes all 752 of them - are in two boxes full of toploaders. The expense might not make sense, (the weight of the boxes sure doesn’t) but I simply didn’t want them in a binder. It’s fair to say that I have an extreme dislike of binders these days.

I know, I know - they never really did anything to me…

Man, the highlighted portion of your post really hits home.

A while back, I decided to start getting more organized by putting all of the tons of random cards I have (in myriad boxes) in order by year, to make life a bit 'easier.' Ha!!! Biggest mistake evah, I tell you!!!!! Who the heck wants to flip through stacks of cards that are unnecessarily arranged in chronological order????? Those are the makings of a lunatic!!!!

To paraphrase good old Patrick (wonder if his friends just called him Pat?) Henry, "Give me randomness or give me death!!!"

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Man, the highlighted portion of your post really hits home.

A while back, I decided to start getting more organized by putting all of the tons of random cards I have (in myriad boxes) in order by year, to make life a bit 'easier.' Ha!!! Biggest mistake evah, I tell you!!!!! Who the heck wants to flip through stacks of cards that are unnecessarily arranged in chronological order????? Those are the makings of a lunatic!!!!

To paraphrase good old Patrick (wonder if his friends just called him Pat?) Henry, "Give me randomness or give me death!!!"

I just like options. I'll have a pile of cards I'm "actively looking at" for any given period of time. That period of time might be 2 days, it might be 2 weeks - just depending on whatever else is or isn't going on in my life. It might be 10 cards, it might be 25. It might be all slabbed, it might be all raw, it might be a random mix.

But generally when I do this, I put the cards in order by year and number in the set. I do enjoy the organization. I just don't want it to be permanent and inflexible.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

I just like options. I'll have a pile of cards I'm "actively looking at" for any given period of time. That period of time might be 2 days, it might be 2 weeks - just depending on whatever else is or isn't going on in my life. It might be 10 cards, it might be 25. It might be all slabbed, it might be all raw, it might be a random mix.

But generally when I do this, I put the cards in order by year and number in the set. I do enjoy the organization. I just don't want it to be permanent and inflexible.

I hope you didn't think I was somehow coming after you. Far from it. I was just having a laugh at how much I love flipping through the sheer randomness of my boxes. I added to my original post.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I hope you didn't think I was somehow coming after you. Far from it. I was just having a laugh at how much I love flipping through the sheer randomness of my boxes. I added to my original post.

Not at all. I find it fascinating myself my habits from one day to the next.


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[Section103]

My collection is always small and specifically tailored, so I prefer catalogued.

[wdwfan]

I'm a binder guy myself. All of my sets as well as any of my Rangers PC (Kinsler, Nolan) are in binders. All cards, including HOFers, stars, whatever. I don't own a single graded card and don't care to. Everything raw and in notebooks.

[IndyDave]

Most of my sets are in binders.

They first went in back in the 70's and 80's long before Card Savers were a thing.

I traded out the old Rothman plastic sheets back during the pandemic for the current sheets.

I do have my 1952 and 1953 Topps and 1953 Bowman (both sets) in Card Saver in boxes. Did that about 15 or 20 years ago, but haven't done more.