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.
Today’s Question: QotD: What is your personal practice for protecting cards?
Helpful Considerations: To a vault? Generic penny sleeves? Dragonshield 35pt with kmc perfect fits beneath inverted into a toploader and stored in a toploader zipper-shut binder that only gets stores flat and only opened in a photography darkroom?
I double sleeve my cards, put them in a toploader, and then into a binder. I like to flip through my collection, but keep them in decent condition as well. Species collecting benefit is that I dont have to take cards out often, and when I do I know I cant accidentally bend, or scratch it as easily.
Card into standard sleeve, into toploader, into toploader binder. Binders stored flat in a dark, humidity controlled location.
A couple of high value cards were sent to me in perfect fit sleeves and i cant get them out! I’m too scared to damage them in trying too hard to remove them, so i’ve just gone full Xzibit and put a sleeve in my sleeve.
This with dragon shield classic clears is what I do for especially nice cards. The soft inner sleeve (as opposed to kmc perfect hards) reduces the chance of nicking a corner while sleeving.
Otherwise, kmc perfect hards with regular penny sleeves. You still get the solid feeling and protection of a hard sleeve, but if you scratch or crease the outer sleeve too much, you can replace it for less than a penny.
4x3 zipper binders with wide spines to avoid bending the inner row column when full.
Magnetic cases to display binder cards. Toploaders + sealed bags for non-binder cards. Bulk holos get a penny sleeve, bulk goes in a box organized by set.
Then there are various sleeves for board game cards, tobacco cards, oversized cards, action flipz and stickers
Welcome, stranger! The cards are behind that door over there. Yeah, that’s right, the small one. Don’t mind the flickering shadows and the boarded up windows that you saw on your way down here, I like my privacy. The smell? Oh, it’s nothing, just the solution I use to store my..uh, souvenirs in. That’s why I’m wearing a mask, because I’m working on my…souvenirs. Yep, that’s the box, the one with the latin inscriptions and the extra thick cobwebs. Wait, why are you shaking, are you feeling dizzy? Do you need me to go get you a glass of water? Heheheh…ahahah…MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!
Love your layout of sleeving products. I am disappointed that you dont do it in an proper darkroom but it seems you at least wash your hands. Always amazing to see peoples set ups.
very rare cards in sleeves + toploaders + toploader-sleeves
one ‘1-slot’ binder for all my jumbo cards, with every jumbo card in sleeve + toploader
three 9-slot binders for all my collection goals, with every card sleeved
Cards outside of my main Pokémon TCG collection goals:
two 9-slot binders for all my abandoned collection goals (e.g. national index collection & Mimikyu collection) and E4 signed cards, with every card sleeved
one ‘1-slot’ binder for all remaining jumbo cards, with every jumbo card in sleeve + toploader
one ‘1-slot’ binder for all sealed booster packs; blister packs; sealed Southern Island; etc.[3]
thirteen 9-slot binders for my general collection of Pokémon TCG cards (with only the holo and misprinted cards sleeved)
one large plastic box for all cards from my general collection that I’d still have to place in their respective binders (with again only the holo and misprinted cards sleeved)
Non-TCG Seviper cards & stickers:
Old small 4x4 binder from my youth, with every non-TCG Seviper card & sticker sleeved
I only use clear sleeves for my entire Pokémon collection. Non-clear sleeves are primarily used for duplicated cards I (have yet to) sell or cards I middleman.
Cards from my main collection goals all use the same clear sleeves I’ve bought; holo/misprinted sleeved cards from my general Pokémon TCG collection and non-TCG Seviper collection are just random clear sleeves I’ve received with orders of the last decade.
Yu-Gi-Oh rarity collection:
one 9-slot binder, with every card sleeved with one of three different Dragon Shield sleeves: one for all non-misprinted rarities; one for all misprinted rarities; and one for all non-misprinted variant of those misprinted rarities for side-by-side comparisons.
Duplicated cards:
one cardboard box for all duplicated Pikachu TCG cards
five large plastic boxes for all 15k+ other duplicated Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards
Greetz,
Quuador
Also contains some graded cards outside of my main collection goals ↩︎
Also contains some sealed cards outside of my main collection goals ↩︎
Also contains some sealed booster packs/blisters from my main collection goals ↩︎
Double sleeve holos or other high valued cards usually, and then just regular sleeve for non-holos. Long term storage outside of a binder I’ll do the same but also using a toploader of course. Graded cards I have one of those graded card boxes and it works fine.
As long as those are personal collection cards or it is clearly disclosed when selling, there are no problems here.
As someone with children, would you say it is better to buy the best protection money can buy or just enough?
Any tips on brands for the binders with wider spines? In terms of zippered 4x3s, I currently have a mix of Ultra Pro and Vault X but I think those are just ‘standard’ spine width.
