For storing high end, expensive, mint cards. What is the best / your preferred option for protection?
I have heard that cards can get damaged from being in sleeves, so I am extremely paranoid.
I see that most people go with penny sleeves, and card savers.
What do you do?
top loaders? card savers? deck protectors? trojan ultra thin?!??$%
I go ultra pro sleeves and ultra pro binder with side loading pockets and a zipper. Card savers also work good. Penny sleeves are also fine. Or you can grade them to protect them with PSa Case. There’s tons of other options i didn’t mention it’s just your choice
Penny sleeves and Card Saver 1s
Card into deck protector, and then upside-down into a penny sleeve. Then I put them in a top loader, and put that into a card saver. Then I put it inside a 4x7 top loader. Then inside a box filled with packing foam, and then inside another box, then I mail it to myself, and when it arrives… well, you get the gist of it.
…you’ll smash it with a hammer
Right back at ya!
@scythe, its a “to each their own” question here for sure, but overall so long as youre storing things correctly and in well suited temperatures/low humid environments then everything should be ok since I wouldnt really say theres a “best” for this sort of thing. Theres certainly some methods that work better than others, but everything ends up being situational in the end.
For myself, I typically go the card saver 1/ penny sleeve route now being i got sick of toploaders and their bulkiness, but most of my higher end-esq things end up getting graded anyway so theres that too.
I’ve been using KMC Perfect Size for all my cards, really good quality for a “penny sleeve”. For my more valuable cards I double sleeve them with the KMC Hyper Mats. Gives the cards a good amount of protection without the bulkiness of a plastic top/side loader.
I’m curious what people would recommend for boxing/basketball cards - which have pointed edges, as opposed to the curved ones of Pokemon cards. Would card sleeves coupled with sleeve covers be okay? ~
You can snip the corners off to make it easier.
is there a specific reason against using deck protectors or top loaders?
I have used top loaders extensively in the past but more recently put most of my raw in the nice ultra pro binders with penny sleeves. You can damage a card on accident using either one. Especially if you are not using new sleeves and then put them into too tight of a top loader. Just find a brand you like or method and be careful no matter what you use. I think smpratte had a video on how to PSA prep cards and went over some good tricks for loading into toploaders. Might want to check that out for an example.
@scythe Top loaders are generally fine, but can damage your cards if/when they’re dropped. Since the cards aren’t completely immobilized inside the toploader (due to fitment variance) they will collide with the inside edge when it hits the floor. So, as long as they’re just sitting in a box they’d be fine.
Card savers pinch the card completely, immobilizing it and are safer as a result. The downside to these is that their overall bend resistance is less. So neither are perfect, but card savers are the safer of the two and also easier to store.
I started using higher quality U.P. deck protectors for some of my sets and l like them (they’re clearer than the pennys) but the cost/benefit is up to you. Pennys flex more. Nothing wrong with either. If you’re grading just use pennys.