I’ve had one instance where I was resleeving my yugioh deck and wasn’t careful when taking a card out of a perfect fit sleeve and ended up bending the card. Fortunately it was just a 30-cent waboku though. Normally I like to remove cards out of perfect fits by pushing on the closed end of the sleeve until enough of the card is exposed for me to easily remove it from the open side. Never ever try to pull the card from the open end while the entire card is still in the sleeve; that’s just asking for trouble.
7 years ago or so I once bought an EX Crystal Guardians pack off ebay (intending to keep it sealed) and accidentally snipped off part of the pack wrapper when I was using scissors to open the poly mailer. I ended up just opening the pack but unfortunately didn’t hit anything spectacular.
Perfect fits are exactly as the name implies. They fit the card extremely snug so to allow another sleeve on top for added protection.
The issue is that the cards are so snug that they can then be hard to remove if not done properly (see Kakuna above). In general they are not really needed if sleeved properly the first time and kept in a binder, but I like the added layer of protection. Some think they can damage the card over time from being too snug, but that is yet to be determined. I have been using them for years and while they can be tough to remove, I have never had damage appear from having them on. The Kakuna was legit mint until I decided to be an idiot with it. It was in that sleeve for a solid 5+ years I would say.
If you use the right perfect fits then there’s zero risk of damage. I have an MTG deck that have been sleeved in the same perfect fits for roughly a decade. The cards have zero damage or warping. But certain perfect fit brands definitely do present that risk; some are slightly too tight and/or inconsistent.
@joer
Ah ok so mainly just removing them from the sleeves, I understand that. I keep my expensive cards double sleeved with a perfect fit and penny so I can remove the car from the penny sleeve and look at it almost raw without worrying about holo scratches.
@zorloth
I use KMCs perfect fits. Are there any known issues with those at all?
I believe those are the ones I use and are recommended by most. They can be tough to get off as noted so be careful. I was simply going too fast and careless. These things happen I suppose all though I wish they did not.
Last time I sorted my 1st ed Fossil holos I started to spontaneously bleed from an old cut on my right thumb. I was plowing through holo Articunos at the precise moment when I discovered the blood, just about to move on to the Dittos and the Dragonites(!!!).
I WAS THIS CLOSE to ruin at least 3 gem mint Articunos and one Dragonite with it, sheer luck that none of it ended up on the cards. First I thought I was going to have a heart attack, then I bursted out laughing. Here I am sitting; washed my hands several times, dried them for a minute, elevated heart rate, being über careful about everything, cleaned my nails, triple checked for specks of dandruff on my shirt and my fucking finger conspires against me?!
I did this with a corrected error Blaine’s charizard years ago with a fat black speck that I swore would jump right off. I ended up taking a energy symbol sized chip off of it and exposed the holo. It’s at psa now but I know it went from a strong 8 to a weak 5 just like that
What’s so bad about perfect fits? I personally think they’re the ideal way to preserve the condition of holo surfaces. That’s why everyone with foiled out MTG decks uses them: to keep the foil surface protected. People who don’t use them end up with cards like this:
I don’t see why the same principle shouldn’t extend to the storage of Pokemon cards. If anything, Pokemon holo surfaces are more fragile.
My experience was with fit sleeves too. I can’t remember what the card was but it was old back Japanese.
I had long fingernails on my right hand for playing classical guitar and I was always very careful with my cards. But this tight fit was just, well, a little too tight so I had to slip my finger in the sleeve and accidentally dinged the top edge of the card with my nails and there was whitening after.
Also I dropped a YGO card once and it landed on its corner and it got bent after. Square corners is really something.
I’ve literally never damaged a card due to perfect fits and I’ve sleeved/unsleeved 10,000+ cards in them. Just because people don’t know how to correctly sleeve/unsleeve with perfect fits doesn’t mean perfect fits are bad lol.
Unfortunately, KMC doesn’t give me any sort of kickback and it’s totally inconsequential to me how other people choose to sleeve their cards. So this isn’t a battle worth fighting haha.
Zorloth- Magic cards handle differently from Pokemon cards. I don’t know what specific dimension is off from the two, but having handled both, I’ve not had a positive experience with KMC perfect fits and WotC era Pokemon. This is old knowledge from years of repeated experiences with KMC PF sleeves and (WotC) Pokemon cards. They weren’t made for eachother.
They are however made for Japanese sized Pokemon cards, which is slightly different from their English counterpart.
I don’t collect WotC, so maybe that’s the reason for my different experience. Because perfect fits work perfectly with EX Series cards. The size/thickness is identical to MTG foils, AFAICT.
