Yes! I settled on Wintra binders from Amazon. They are basically replicas of the Vault X binder. $24.40 for a black/blue 720 card 4x3 binder.
Wintra binder spines will expand to ~2.6 inches. Vault X will stiffly to expand to about 2-2.1 inches
Ultra Pro and Vault X each have their areas in which they’re better, but I often need a high capacity binder that will end up mostly filled (720 card), so the wider spine comes in handy. My nicest cards are mostly in Vault X 12 pocket Xl’s, but I avoid the inner columns when possible & don’t overfill them.
I have a few of each binder if you’d like pictures to compare
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Please, that would be appreciated!
I had a quick look on Amazon and they only had a brown Wintra 3x3 that apparently held 504 cards. The spine didn’t look much wider in the pics so not sure I’m looking at the right thing.
But I am in the UK so options may be more limited.
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Sorry for the late reply! Here are a few pics. Ultra Pro, Vault X, then Wintra in blue. I’ve never tried the brown one
You are right, Wintra binders don’t look much thicker than vault x before they’re filled, but the additional flexibility of the Wintra spine, which you could view as a negative since a less firm spine is technically less protection, allows the binder to expand a little better than vault x
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Thanks! I think Wintra is too difficult for me to get here anyway. At least Vault X is a solid middle of the road in terms of spine. I’ve had some full Vault X’s for some time now and none of the cards in the first column had warped when I checked out of interest following your previous post. I do stack them though so maybe that helps overall.
Vault X definitely better than Ultra Pro overall though looking at those pics. I’m currently in the slow process of re-bindering into Vault X and I noticed that the Ultra Pros seem to also suffer from pocket scuffing a lot worse than VX. One also had splits on the inner edges of the pages and on every page in the binder.
I grew up believing Ultra Pro to be the premium, standard-setter but apart from penny sleeves, I don’t buy anything of theirs anymore these days.
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No problem! Vault X definitely has a more solid feel and is probably the superior binder between the 3. I tend to obsess over certain details like spine width/flexibility and moisture (double sleeving) due to where I live anyways.
Same. The bottom row of card slots in my Ultra Pro binder are all too small for Ultra Pro sleeves lol. Just the bottom row.
Do you completely fill them or just mostly? And what’s your experience stacking them with all that weight bearing down on the bottom cards?
All my binders lay flat on top shelves because I’m worried about misaligned cards pressing dents into each other if they’re stacked or the pages drooping over time if they’re stood up like books… It’d be nice to reclaim some closet space though
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I do completely fill them if the sets make sense going together. So I have Base, Jungle, Fossil, Base 2, and Rocket all in one because I’m not leaving Rocket out when there’s physically room for it.
Then I have all the Neos in a single binder. Gym has more room because I kind of want them to stay together in isolation but I might see if Rocket fits with them just to ease up the first binder… or not! I’m in the middle of reorganising it all and I’m not fully decided yet.
I have about 7 binders total with Pokemon, Yugioh, Digimon and other random stuff and the original Ultra Pro Base/Jungle/Fossil/Base 2/Rocket binder was on the bottom for the longest time and nothing in there looks warped or damaged (I’ve been inspecting and re-sleeving all cards as I move them over to the new Vault X binders).
Have to admit that storing them like books on a shelf is more appealing, and I see people doing it, but I’m not sure if there is any drawback to doing this with these ziplock binders? Not that I can do that right now though as these binders are way too big for any of my shelves.
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When I was a kid I used to save space and put all the same card in one slot in the binder page. Could probably fit some more but got 13 Charmander’s in the one and 16 Ponyta’s. Now that I’m older it’s just me switching everything to an Ultra Pro soft sleeve then Vault X zipper binders and the few graded cards I have in a Zion Case.
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