Will this hurt my cards???
 

I'm a binder set builder for much of my collection and I used to place them flat with no more than one binder on top of the other. Well my sets are becoming more and more plentiful and I'm running out of room. I've seen more than a few collections where the collector places their binders in a bookshelf vertically and obviously that frees up a lot of space. I use only Ultra Pro's collector's album and Ultra Pro Platinum pages.

Here's the question: Do I run the risk of the cards bending or any ruining of condition from the pressure of being held only by the 3 ring binder if I keep them this way? Or should I just go back to laying them flat?

What do you do? Thank you in advance for any thoughts on the subject and why you do what you do.

JT

I wonder the same thing to be honest.

I've seen where at least one collector had built custom bookshelves that had just enough space on each shelf to hold a couple binders flat like you do. That reduces the amount of useless space on the shelves because they are built with less space between them.

I wish I had an image to post to show what I mean, but unfortunately, I don't.




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I like the binders that hang in file cabinets. This takes any and all stress off of the cards as they hang in a file cabinet.

https://i.imgur.com/Ykis2PCh.jpg

In all my binders, I keep the 9th slot empty
So if a binder shifts in a book case, usually the cards remain damage free

I've told this story several times now, so skip past if you've heard it before. I had a binder of 65 Topps stored vertically, in mostly Ultra Pro pages. After about 25 years, I noticed that several of the cards in the top left position on the pages had curled corners. Gravity causes the top of the pages to try to pull away from the spine and creates stress there.

I do not store high-grade cards vertically anymore.

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I'm a big fan of these binders from Bindertek. They have a rigid outer slipcase that the binder slides into which makes stacking them flat easy and organized. I always store my binders flat.

https://www.bindertek.com/one-touch-...pcase-2-spine/

Before I sold my Topps collection, I kept them all in Ultra Pro sheets in Itoya folders. No potential curving.

I use the binders from archivalmethods.com that have stiff slipcase similar to what snowman and others showed above. I store my vertically such that the spine is on top and the pages hang freely. Have had no issues.

Here is how the ones I still have are stored

Edited to add : the Bowman sets are not complete...

This is exactly what I have done with sets that are in binders. Been that way for years with no issues.