What are your opinions on toploader binders vs regular binders?
I can see how toploader binders would be good for valuable cards for at a show, alot of people taking them in and out of binders it adds a bit more protection. But I’ve been thinking about my personal collection and have been thinking of making the switch from a top loader binder to a normal one for esthetic reasons, I feel the toploader ones don’t really look clean and uniform.
Show some of your favorite binder pages or explain why you chose one or the other. Im still up in the air about what I’d like to do.
I think it heavily depends on the style of collecting. Both are going to be seen as fine no matter the collector. I made the switch to toploader binder a few years back because of the protection some of the binders themselves provide as well as the toploaders, but I will admit that it does aesthetically look better without them on. I would say if you plan on trading alot, taking cards out to rearrange, or want people to enjoy looking at them, then dont use a toploader binder, but if you want more long term protection then its up to you. I will also say to that the toploader binders can get quite heavy, and hold less cards which isnt fun to walk around with if you plan on it. There really isnt a “bad” approach to displaying cards imo. (Easy solution is to just get both!)
I do agree that the regular hold more and I do love the way they look more. But I do like the added protection of toploaders. In a binder thats really just for myself and i dont really bring out does it really need the extra protection haha. I might get a regular and test it for a bit just to see how I feel.
I also feel cards are almost never perfectly centered in toploaders. So even tho the toploader fits snug inside the binder the card itself can still be all over the place
I remember spending an absurd amount of time trying to create a top loader binder in 2018 (they were not a thing back then) i eventually found some photo sleeves that were an exact fit (tight) and paired them with a random ring binder (which was too big for the pages, but it worked)
I eventually switched back to regular binders and haven’t looked back, even when they actually became something you could purchase ready made. IMO nothing beats a regular binder, much more clean looking and less clunky
I really dislike toploader binders. They are competely overkill for card protection even for very valuable binder collections. High quality sleeves in a nice sideloading 20 page binder is my preference. Zippers are a nice bonus. I also prefer a 3 x 3 card layout to a 3 x 4 layout mostly for nostalgic and logistical/storage reasons.
Whatever brings you peace of mind and fits your needs!
I started with regular binders but became uncomfortable with certain valuable cards being on inner (pages bulge when binder is full) and outer columns (the cards you may grab when flipping pages). Most of my binders are still regular though.
My toploader binders lose card visibility, but I am at peace.
I have never been a fan of toploader binders. In my opinion, if you use the right binder and don’t do any weird things, the cards are well protected in a standard zip binder.
Although I’ve been thinking about buying a 2300 binder more than once for my entire Pikachu collection, I’ve primarily been hold off by it because the binder itself wouldn’t fit properly in my binder closet, being ~50x65x5cm in dimensions.
Right now I use regular 4-D-ring office binders, with loose double-sided 9-slot pages, which honestly have worked great for the past 10+ years. It’s especially convenient when you want to add a page in between somewhere, without having to move all the cards around again (which especially happens often in my second binder, that holds part of my Pikachu collection, as well as my Seviper collection).
The front of my main binder also looks like this (I’ve basically put every Pikachu sticker I receive with other orders on my binders). Which is another reason why I’d be hesitant to replace it.
I also use a similar office binder with either 1-slot A4 pages for my Jumbo cards, and 4-slot pages for my graded cards, and another one with 4-slot pages for my sealed cards. So basically my entire Pikachu collection is in binders.
Toploader binders are awful. They obstruct your view of the card and don’t offer any meaningful benefit in protection that a well-stored and maintained binder doesn’t already provide.
Ive been thinking of doing this for my Aerodactyl binder, and I keep everything in release date order. I think I got everything right so I dont believe ill be reorganizing it again.
If you keep everything in release order, you indeed shouldn’t have to re-organize, unless you’ve accidentally missed a release.
I personally group similar artworks together, ordered by the first release date of a card in that group (e.g. for Pikachu, the Base Set, Base Set 2, XY Evolutions, and Classic Collection have all been grouped together). So when the Classic Collection was added a few years ago, I did add some new 9-slot pockets in my binder. In a regular binder, even though I’d likely would have reserved some space for those kind of releases tbch, I may have had to move everything in the binders, which with almost 2000 Pikachu cards in my collection, isn’t a small task.
But if you order everything in your binders in release order, there indeed shouldn’t be any problems.
And I think Aerodactyl is also much less likely to have an artwork reprint later on tbf, except maybe a stamped, holo, or Deck variant (although even those can sometimes be released 5+ years after their initial artwork release..).
Besides regular binders and toploader binders, I actually like semirigid binders. The Gemloader semirigids are really nice and I prefer them to the Cardsaver ones.
I have this as my ‘might send to grading one day’ binder, and I generally like the look of semirigids more than toploaders.
Above poster said that toploader binders are an overkill, but we are in a hobby where we encapsulate cards in hard plastic, then in a rubber protectors, and then in phantom display acrylic cases .
In any case, I take all cards out quite a lot when trading at shows, with friends, or when inspecting 100x when choosing a card for a grading submission.
I do agree that nothing, however, beats the look of a regular binder layout.
It’s especially convenient when you want to add a page in between somewhere, without having to move all the cards around again (which especially happens often in my second binder, that holds part of my Pikachu collection, as well as my Seviper collection).
I love the trainer magazine promos so much
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