So I’ve always double sleeved good cards in a perfect fit sleeve and dragon shield outer sleeve in my binders. I hear some people say perfect fit sleeves damage cards long-term, while others say this is BS. Does anyone have proof/personal experience of this?
I store all my Pokemon cards (mostly EX Series) in perfect fits, including ones that ended up getting CGC 9.5s. They were only stored in perfect fits for maybe 8-9 months max, though. But zero damage. This is with KMC perfect fits; I wouldn’t touch any other brand.
As far as longer-term storage, I can speak to MTG cards (which have basically identical dimensions as Pokemon cards). I’ve had decks stored in perfect fits for upwards of a decade, and the cards are in the same condition as they were originally.
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Thanks a decade is a pretty good time frame. My cards are all in nice binders one per pocket so I really wasn’t expecting any damage…
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One other thing to note: YMMV with WotC holos. Some claim that WotC holos are slightly too thick for perfect fits. I haven’t personally experienced this, however. Either way, if the cards slides into the sleeve without resistance you should be fine. If you’re having to exert force to push the card into the sleeve, it’s probably too tight. But I’ve found KMC perfect fits to be consistently the correct size.
Also, this advice is coming from someone who is super anal and paranoid about raw card condition. Trust me, if I thought there was risk of long term damage I wouldn’t be using them lol.
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Never understood people using perfect fit or deck sleeves. Why jam your card in too small of a sleeve when you can easily fit it in penny sleeve?
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exactly right, there’s no benefits, only potential downsides - why use them?
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I stored a Victory Orb trophy card in an Ultra Pro perfect fit sleeve (yes, I’m insane) along with a penny sleeve for good measure.
It sat in a solo penny sleeve for approx 11 years and another year in the perfect fit/penny sleeve combo, but scored a PSA 10 when I finally submitted it for grading.
I’ve also previously kept a FrLg Charizard ex in a perfect fit, and that still scored a PSA 9 (narrowly missed the 10). The tight fit didn’t damage any if the border holofoil whatsoever.
For me, it was to double sleeve high value cards while they were in storage.
I don’t bother anymore though, due to the length of time it took to de-sleeve each card when prepping them for grading submissions.
I store all my binder cards in KMC perfect fit inside KMC super / matte black. Over the years I have graded a fair amount of high end PSA 10s that were in these sleeves including Rayquaza gold star, Charizard legendary collection reverse holo, multiple shinings and crystals. However to each their own and it does take practice. If you view as unnecessary then don’t double sleeve. I prefer it for risk of water damage.
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I think the most potential for trouble comes when de-sleeving a perfect fit.
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I had a card damaged by a perfect fit sleeve. It was a card that is known for being very easily susceptible to edgewear, the high-grade psa pop reflects that and is really low. It happened when the card was taken out using the same method as in the video: gently nudge the bottom of the card, if possible at a slight angle so that you try not to touch the edge of the card to the back edge of the sleeve. Since the card was snug in the sleeve and very close to the bottom edge of the sleeve, it touched the crevice at the bottom of the sleeve and somehow there was new whitening on the card exactly where my fingers had nudged the card.
I have a feeling that almost never happens, this was just a really vulnerable card (one of the town map cards from carddass part 1/2).
As for long-term damage I have nothing to say.
Edit: Btw they were KMC
If you don’t understand the benefit of perfect fits, then you’ve clearly never played foiled-out MTG deck. Without perfect fits, foils become cloudy over time – even if you don’t play with them often. Perfect fits prevent dust or other particulate matter from touching the card surface. I’ve saved (quite literally) tens of thousands of dollars over the course of 12/13 years of regular play by using perfect fits. I regularly played my foiled-out EDH deck (which had pack fresh foil JPN Grim Monolith, original ONS fetches, and many thousands of dollars in other ultra high-end, mint foils) and when I went to sell the foils, they were just as minty as the day I sleeved them up. I can 100% guarantee you that wouldn’t have been the case if I didn’t use perfect fits; in fact, they would’ve ended up MP or HP, most likely.
I realize that Pokemon cards aren’t MTG cards, but they are pretty similar. And I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable having mint reverse holos in a binder if they weren’t perfect-fitted. Non-holos are a different story. But I feel strongly that mint reverse holos in particular are better off in perfect fits than not.
Ultimately; to each their own. If you don’t like them, don’t use them. But there certainly are benefits to using them. And the risks of using them are negligible if you know how to sleeve/desleeve with them and if you use the correct brand.
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My statement is regarding using perfect fits on Pokemon cards which would not be played with and are stored and handled correctly - which rules out storing them in a binder 
After giving them a shot a couple times I finally had to pass. A penny sleeve (even a thick one) in a card saver guarantees the contents to stay the same basically forever. Of course I steer away from using binders.
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I agree that binder storage is usually not the ideal way to preserve cards. But if you do it correctly, cards can be safely preserved in binders over the long-term. If you use a side-loading, non-ringed binder and store it upright, there’s minimal risk of damage. I’ve been storing Magic cards like this for a long time without issue, and haven’t had any issue with storing Pokemon cards like this over the past 1.5 years either.
But most people don’t know how to correctly store cards in binders. So I would agree that, unless you know exactly how to store cards in binders, that binders aren’t the best way to preserve cards. Slabs, toploaders, card savers, etc. are all safer storage options for most people. But binders can be nearly as good if you use them correctly.
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I’ve used kmc perfect fits over the past 6 years for both my pokemon and yugioh cards (kmc perfect fit minis for the latter). For lower-value cards, I’ll just single-sleeve using a perfect fit, but for higher-value cards I’ll double-sleeve them as it makes me feel more comfortable taking them in and out of binders/outer sleeves when I reorganize them and handling them in general.
I can’t speak to long-term storage as most of my binder cards either weren’t psa 10 quality to begin with, or they just haven’t been in storage long enough to really know, but as far as I can tell they’re fine. I’ve only once damaged a card taking it out of a perfect fit, and it was just one 30-cent yugioh card when I was re-sleeving a deck mindlessly and accidentally tried pulling it out of the sleeve too hard without enough of the card exposed.
Usually when I take cards out of a perfect fit, I push the card down from the closed end of the sleeve once or sometimes twice so that more of the card is exposed and I can handle it from the edges rather than having to hold the surface to pull it out. It’s pretty difficult to damage a card this way, though the sleeve will have a small light crease from the second push. Just don’t force anything and it’ll be okay. KMC perfect fits occasionally have slight quality control issues, so a few sleeves in a pack might be slightly smaller or slightly larger (just don’t use them if on the smaller side!).
That said, if you have a card you know you’re going straight away you’re going to grade, then you can skip double sleeving and just go with the usual penny sleeve and card saver. Even for binders, you don’t need to worry about dust particles much if you have a side-loading one). If I need to change the sleeve though, I’d feel much more comfortable touching an inner sleeve rather than the card itself. In the end it comes down to personal preference, and as long as you’re careful, I don’t think there’s much risk of damage.
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The only ones I’ve noticed that cause damage are the Ultra-Pro perfect fit sleeves, avoid at ALL costs, I had some tokens only in the Ultra Pro perfect fits and they curled, these were perfectly straight, but the fits were so tight it curled them!
Dragon Shield and KMC perfect fit sleeves are fantastic at preventing damage and curling in the case of MTG foils, I use both and highly recommend them.
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I’m not into the debate anymore about why or why not you should use perfect fit sleeves. I’ve now owned cards in perfect fit sleeves for over 5 years without issues. No warping, no edgewear, nothing. Others have had a different story.
Everyone has a different way of handling cards and likes X,Y, and Z for presentation/handling/protection.
At the end of the day, experiment. It’s what we all end up doing in the end anyway.
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I find the Ultra-Pro perfect fit sleeves to be just fine for Japanese cards; they are literally a perfect fit. However, I don’t like to use them with English cards. English cards are a little thicker than Japanese cards, at least when talking about vintage, and I feel the Ultra-Pro perfect fit sleeves are a bit too small fir them. The sides of the sleeve tent to press on the edges of the card and bend it.
Depends on if you’re going to put it in a binder. If not then no, I wouldn’t use a perfect fit sleeve as there would be no benefit. If you do plan on putting it into a binder then using a perfect fit would actually cause less damage than a penny sleeve. Most binder pages weren’t designed for cards in penny sleeves and when you try to cram one in there it increases the likelihood of it being damaged.
TLDR: If you’re worried about using perfect fits, then don’t use them.
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