Hi!
I was wondering, how do YOU organize/sort your cards.
I already kinda asked @ my collection topic about how I should sort my cards, and I looked through the whole world wide web, but for the love of Arceus, finding a answer/solution seems impossible! I did get some solid advice at my topic, but even with that, I struggle, but maybe it’s just me It probably is
I will try to make it short, since this question is (sort of) asked already in my topic, but:
Let say I have 4 eevee’s with the same art. 3 of them belong to one set. Simple.
But, “aesthetically” it would also be awesome to put that 1 Eevee together with the other 3, since it’s the same art. But if i’d collect/organize my cards per set, that would mess everything up.
Does my question make any sense? Just say if it doesn’t, then I’ll try to explain in it a different way.
So; what do you do with your cards? Especially if you collect only one species of Pokemon (or the evolution line of that pokemon)
And yes, i know it all comes to down to personal preferences, but I really want some tips/inspo, also if it doesn’t really apply to my case specifically
(and i just love seeing binder setups!)
tia!
xo shinyumbreon
I collect promos, so for numbered promos, it is pretty straight forward, organize by set. For unnumbered promos, if they don’t have a direct link, I make my own collection parameter to something cohesive that binds all of that cards together.
For Eg: I have some unnumbered promos which were a part of the gym challenge series. They are released in different years, not every card has a visible link (in terms of set no, stamp etc) to each other, but I have them on the same binder page because they are part of the gym challenge series. So it is solely my preference.
I can understand for species collectors this can be a headache, but if I was doing so, I would organize the cards with similar artwork, oldest to newest and then move to the next card / artwork. I like the idea of a binder page with similar looking artwork albeit some minor differences which only I know and can explain.
Yes! But I would apply the same organizational method to any other type of collection. Sorting primarily by distribution date solves a lot of headaches; Unnumbered cards? Not sure how to sort all the additional promotional cards for your master set? No problem! Just sort them by when they were distributed!
I’m primarily a set collector but i also collect Pikachu and i frequently have to shift the whole binder by one slot to account for a promo reusing an artwork to put like arts in a row; i definitely feel this is the best way to organize it though!
Your question makes perfect sense, and this is also how I organize my Pikachu collection.
In general, I order my cards on set release date. I do this with my entire general Pokémon collection (here a list of all Pokémon TCG cards I own - 13,294 unique TCG cards at time of writing to be exact).
For some of my focused separated collections however, like Pikachu or Seviper (which I collect in all languages/variations), I group the same artwork across different sets together (e.g. the Base Set Pikachu artwork is also in Base Set 2 and XY Evolutions, and also has a variation in Rising Rivals and Celebrations, so they’re all grouped together in my binder). Each individual artwork I order further based on languages → holo/non-holo → stamp variations/regular. Here my Pikachu checklist and my Seviper checklist to give you an idea - my binders or sorted exactly as in my checklist (as can also be seen in the imgur-link at the top of my Seviper checklist) - with the exception of the graded/sealed/Jumbo/misprinted cards being in separated binders.
The non-set cards, like those from decks or promos, I’ve sorted after all the sets. For promos I first do all artworks released in English, including all its variations/languages; then all released in Japanese, including its variations/languages; and then all non-English/non-Japanese cards, which can be counted on a single hand tbh.
PS: I also keep two empty spaces between each artwork, in case a new stamp variation is released later on, so I won’t have to shift too much. Although in the past those variations were usually released across multiple languages, so I still had to reorganize my binders most of the times.