I scoured the forums this morning looking for advice on Card Sleeves. They date back to 2015 and 2019 and are members I don’t see as active anymore so I thought I would ask newer and seasoned collectors in 2024.
My girlfriend recently got into trading cards and asked me which sleeves should she use. For the longest time I have used Ultra Pro. It’s cheap and still gives it a little room. As I looked at my binder, it’s had me second guessing maybe I should be using something a little more premium.
Ultra Pro: (currently using)
Pros:
Very easy to get in and out
Perfect for cheap cards
Leaves a little wiggle room
Cons:
Too flimsy
Feels cheap when you want to put an expensive card
I hate perfect fit sleeves and would not recommend them. For my binders where I would like to preserve condition and/or the cards are worth some money, I exclusively use Dragon Shields. Otherwise, I use normal penny sleeves for binders of cheap or played cards.
Much sturdier than soft sleeves but not as tight and unforgiving as perfect fits. They do tend to collect dust. Not sure if I would go with black again (though I just take the card out if I want to see the back.) I can’t remember having any problems with them.
I used to buy ultra pro penny sleeves but the quality and size of those really varies a lot. Some sleeves were folded in half straight out of pack and some were so big that they didn’t fit in my binder at all. Using codacollects sleeves now, they are real pain to open for the first time but they are slightly smaller (still bigger than tight fits, really don’t like those) so the issue with fitting them in binder is gone
Soft, flimsy, and roomy. I would personally only use these only for shipping or for box storage. If you want this type of sleeve material and ease of inserting / removing cards, Ultra Pro also produces “Premium” Soft Sleeves which are the same thing but slightly smaller (though still leaving plenty of room).
High quality regular ‘inner’ sleeves. Fit cards snugly, might not be for you if you regularly take cards out of sleeves or fear the snug fit might damage your cards. Can be double-sleeved with a regular-size sleeve to seal the card off from the environment.
High quality card sleeves with a thicker, textured back and a sleek black inner backing. This is the kind of sleeve made to endure the repeated shuffling associated with frequent TCG play and will certainly be sufficient protection for binder-stored cards.
Similar to the above Dragon Shield sleeves, though ever so slightly less thick. I personally prefer these over Dragon Shield’s Dual Mattes due to their slightly tighter measurements.
For my own binder collections, I use Dragon Shield Perfect Fit Sealable inside Ultra Pro Eclipse Gloss. I like the snug measurements and the black backing frames the cards wonderfully. Bonus mention to Dragon Shield’s 18-Pocket Pages with their folded edges and rounded corners;
I would also recommend watching some of Tolarian Community College’s card sleeve reviews. I believe this is their most recent video on sleeves, touching on Ultimate Guard’s current offerings and some others; Can Any Card Sleeve Defeat Dragon Shield Mattes?
They have hours worth of reviews of different brands of card sleeves, though do keep in mind they review sleeves through the lens of play / frequent shuffling.
Been sleaving with Perfect fits for 7+ years now and still swear by them. I double sleeve with Katana or Dragonshield (matte) though I use the latter for more thematic reasons. It’s true that Perfect Sleeves get easier if you get enough practice and have never damaged a card so far. I still find Card Savers more difficult than any other form of card protection in general.
Single sleeving is perfectly fine too. I had a 4 figure card just sitting in a binder in a penny sleeve for 15 years and it got a PSA 10 after taking it out after all that time.
I just prefer double sleeving my collection because it keeps a card sturdy if you’re taking it out to look at it. I’m more likely to bend a corner of the outer sleeve than I am the inner sleeve and card inside this way and have had close calls the few times I dropped something. It just gives me peace of mind.
For me, Dragonshield is the best brand for sleeves and binders.
I’ve heard excellent things for play purpose, particularly from Tolarian Community College, a well known mtg youtuber.
Their perfect fit sealable are my favourite.
It’s worth noting they have a premium over other sleeves but the reputation is excellent.
For toploaders and semi rigids I like to use ultrapro penny sleeves but for my binders I’m definitely a fan of vault x (slightly smaller than ultrapro).
KMC perfect fits come in multiple thicknesses and are the “Japanese perfect fit” sleeves you’ve probably heard mentioned around forums or reddit.
There’s also a real cool factor to the Kadomaru sleeves with rounded corners.
Sorry for the poor picture here, just a quick phone snap.
They should fit into any standard size side-loading pages. I see Vault X lists an internal pocket dimension of 68mm x 97mm on their website, which is plenty for the 66mm x 91mm size of a DS Perfect + UP Eclipse-sleeved card. I’d probably even go for a Dragon Shield Matte or Dual Matte instead of the Ultra Pro Eclipse, just because the taller sleeves might fill out the pockets a little better - though even then those pockets seem like they’ll be pretty roomy vertically.
Do keep in mind that double-sleeving adds some thickness to your cards, and that portfolios with fixed pages might not be designed to fill up completely with double-sleeved cards. I know that Ultimate Guard and Gamegenic list their portfolios as “Designed for double-sleeved cards” and “Optimized for double-sleeved cards” respectively.
I also second the Dragon Shield Resealable Perfect Fit sleeves. I was initially apprehensive to get them and it may take some getting used to, specially if you have never worked with perfect fits, but they are not super snug or tight like some of the other perfect fits and leave a lot of breathing room. I top it off with a standard penny sleeve to just make it more secure and slot it in my binder.
Sample on a single card. This is how I sleeve my cards. The Dragon Shield resealable perfect fits and then a loose fitting penny sleeve.
However, the price point can add up if you plan to sleeve all cards like this. They are not the cheapest as compared to loose penny sleeves. I use them for my personal collection and I feel it well worth the money spent.
I know this is an extreme case and probably does not happen, but when I was checking the reviews, the waterproofing aspect also helped me make a decision.
