Air-tight containers

[steve B]

Originally Posted by TheNightmanCometh

I couldn't imagine a scenario where someone would have thousands of unprotected cards that should be protected and never took the time to protect them as they were collected.

Unless you buy a giant lot from someone who knew nothing about cards.

How about someone on a budget that bought large lots, sorted them into his sets then moved the extras along to hopefully pay for the next big boxful?

That's basically what my collection is.

When I started there weren't many supplies, so from 74- 77 I had maybe 8 pages in a binder where I kept the "best" cards.
After that I lived near a card store and balanced buying sheets with buying cards. Should have bought more cards
But aside from a project to have a binder for each set with space open for cards I didn't have, again not everything made it into pages.

The rest went into boxes, sometimes boxes made for cards, sometimes not. Some went into a big file cabinet that had shallow drawers for some sort of filing system that used cards, maybe 3x5s? Still have it, and it's really well made but not convenient as any cards have to go in sideways.

So now what I use are the shoebox boxes. The older cards that aren't really nice go in with no sleeves, nice ones get sleeves, really nice ones get sleeves and toploaders. (Except for that one 59 Topps with tape residue that's still really sticky, that one got a sleeve despite being a total mess. ) All the prewar stuff is in holders.

Most haven't curled at all. And the slumping/sliding of the stacks is solved with some balled up newspaper to fill the extra space. I'm gradually sleeving some of the 60's and 70's stuff, haven't really started on the 80's or 90's. New stuff gets sleeved if it's prone to problems - like the Gypsy queen framed cards- or is a special card - autograph insert, lower serial numbered minis etc.

Steve B