The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questionsj are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
The best protection for playability is an inner sleeve upside down in an outer sleeve. Side loading sleeves offer significantly less protection than a regular inner (or outer, frankly) because of the opening being so much larger. This was actually tested by Tolarian Academy a few years ago.
I was considering the side loaders, but never actually used them before so good to know. Should have been obvious considering, but thanks for the info nonetheless. Using the inner upside down followed by outer right side up is actually my standard method for storage. For playability, I would assume the same because you don’t want the inner sleeves slipping out when you are trying to read them/hold them.
But to be the one who says it first…
“Sleeves? What card sleeves? Where we are going, we don’t need no stinkin’ card sleeves…”
I’ve been getting a bunch of those from my purchases recently. Not sure yet if I like them or not. Feels like it’s easier to take cards out, but that’s a double-edged sword if the seller doesn’t package correctly.
facing up is whats natural for me ESPECIALLY for a sleeve. I always try to take cards out of a sleeve by pushing the bottom and if its a side loaded sleeve it always irks me.
I put cards in sleeves bottom first and then into toploaders top first. It’s all up to personal preference though, I don’t think it makes too much difference.
I’m a fan of sideloaders… they’re more compact and easier to use imo. I wish they made a dedicated binder for them. Given they’re smaller than standard toploaders, it should be possible to make a much more compact “toploader” binder for sideloaders… If anyone knows of one pls let me know
The standard facing-up, card placed in from the top for me. All my cards are stored in zipper binders with side-loading pages anyway so I’ve never seen the need for double sleeving or anything else.
For my own collection goals, I always put them in the same transparent sleeve I’ve been using for decades, with the opening at the top.
For cards I sleeve outside of my collection goals, I also only use transparent sleeves, but in all kind of sizes from different orders. Most cards still have the opening at the top, but some are at the (right) side.
If I receive a card that has the opening at the bottom and I don’t replace the sleeve, I tend to turn them around. Even if they are simply cards I’m forwarding as middleman.
As for top-loaders: I prefer the side-loaders, but since I don’t receive them too often, most of my cards that I’ve used toploaders for have the opening at the bottom (with the inner sleeve at the top), including Jumbo cards. (And sealed cards in toploaders are at the top as well, without any additional inner sleeves.)
