Protecting a large collection

[kylocke]

I started working on a long term project to collect every Buffalo Bills base/insert card they made (no auto/memorabilia/parallels). I have identified about 8,700 card to collect so far, and have almost 40% of the collection done. Right now, they are sitting in a 5,000 card box sorted by year and set, but I wanted to work on a way to be able to display them.

I have settled for the current, using the premium card sleeves (the thicker ones) and then putting the card into binders by decade/year. The reason for the second set of protection is every now and then I find a card I didnt know existed, and have to shift cards around, so I am want to minimize touching them.

Now, my real question is, what is a good long-term protection solution for protecting the card, especially the 60's, 70's and 80's where the card stock was a bit flimsier and prone to easy damage. I am not collecting the best quality cards, more just trying to get one of each no matter the quality, so grading would be pointless on some, and very expensive. I just want the cards to still be in good condition 30 years down the road.

Any information would be great. Thanks!

[PrimeTimeScott]

My mom started collecting Broncos cards back when I couldn't drive to card shows and she had to drive me. She had them front to back in 9 pocket sleeves in two binders. She stopped collecting in about 1993 and everything was in two binders.

About five years ago, I first sorted what she had and created a checklist from Beckett of every card from 1960 to 1995. I added and removed a few cards from the checklist based on what I thought should be included. I bought all new 9 pocket (and a few 6 pocket for the 1965s, and some 4 pocket for various larger cards) pages for all of the cards and placed the cards only on one side of the pages in new binders. I left blanks in the pages where I knew cards were missing and at the end of each brand or year so I could add a card that might have been on the original checklist, plus I like to start each brand on its own page, unless two brands will all fit on one. I put a few of the nicer cards in penny sleeves, but mostly they are just in the 9 pocket pages. I'm not sure how well protected they are in all honesty, but they display nicely in the binders and I'm much like you in not caring how perfect they are.

When I took over the project my mom had about 875 (or about 21%) of the approximately 4275 cards from 1960 to 1995. Now I have 3375 (or about 79%). I've also added newer cards as well, and I just collect the regular issue cards of the new ones.

I guess I really didn't answer the original question, except to say they are all in 9 pocket sheets in binders. Good luck adding to the collection!!

[kylocke]

Yeah, the way you were storing them in binders is exactly how I was going about it. 1 page per set, and I put in a decoy card if there was a blank due to the set being less than 8 cards (the first slot is a title card with the name of the set, and the publisher). That way I knew its not blank for a missing card. I just know that over time, those binder sheets break down, or the cards can stick to the plastic. This was likely due to storing them in areas where the temperature fluctuates, and I can't always guarantee where the cards end up being stored.

What cards are you collecting? I wonder if I have anything to help your collection as well. I just got in someones personal collection of 1994-2000 cards. Once I finish sorting, I can send you a photo of the broncos, there are about 800-1000 unique cards there.

[PrimeTimeScott]

I agree that the sheets can break down over the years. I figure that if I notice them looking bad, I will replace them. I don't know of a better way to store them that both protects them and shows them off.

I've slowed down on the Bronco cards, but send a pic. Maybe there will be something I could use! I now have focused on Eddie Royal and this year I started collecting Rashard Higgins a bit.

[ginge01]

Originally Posted by kylocke

I started working on a long term project to collect every Buffalo Bills base/insert card they made (no auto/memorabilia/parallels). I have identified about 8,700 card to collect so far, and have almost 40% of the collection done. Right now, they are sitting in a 5,000 card box sorted by year and set, but I wanted to work on a way to be able to display them.

I have settled for the current, using the premium card sleeves (the thicker ones) and then putting the card into binders by decade/year. The reason for the second set of protection is every now and then I find a card I didnt know existed, and have to shift cards around, so I am want to minimize touching them.

Now, my real question is, what is a good long-term protection solution for protecting the card, especially the 60's, 70's and 80's where the card stock was a bit flimsier and prone to easy damage. I am not collecting the best quality cards, more just trying to get one of each no matter the quality, so grading would be pointless on some, and very expensive. I just want the cards to still be in good condition 30 years down the road.

Any information would be great. Thanks!

I have built my New York Jets collection by putting them in 9 pocket sleeves. I have every base and insert from 1960-2000, apart from the Joe Namath 1965 RC I sold 5 years ago, a dumb move on my part. I have almost all of the base and inserts between 2001-2010 ( I do about 80-90% of the sets), with so many new products appearing I decided not to do them all. Storing them becomes an issue as I added parallels between 1991-1996, and most of 1997. It becomes too big a collection to do all the Pacific, Collector's Edge etc up to 2000, for 2010 onwards, trying to keep up with all the Topps / Panini rainbows impossible. I think from 1991 it most be 400-500 different cards a year in 1 binder, from 1995 it became 2 binders, 1996 & 1997 are three binders, every year since 1998 has been two binders. I have around 2300 different autos from 1991-2016, mostly the base autos in with the team sets and inserts. The binders are collated in alphabetical order, so it used to lead off with Action Packed, Bowman through to Topps, Upper Deck & Wild Card with the stripe parallels following, it's easy for me to find any card. For sets like Contenders, I stick to base, but for Score I collect down to Red Zone, from Prizm only the parallels I care for, so there is no clear logic to the collection, but with odd excel spreadsheets I have, I can generally cross reference what I have as I collect a new year of Score, Prizm, Contenders etc. I can't afford the very high end 1 of 1's like collectors have talked about in the last few days, Sheldon Richardson 1 of 1's etc, if I was doing something like that, it would be special individual holders or screwdowns for protection and not binders.

[PrimeTimeScott]

Originally Posted by ginge01

I have built my New York Jets collection by putting them in 9 pocket sleeves. I have every base and insert from 1960-2000, apart from the Joe Namath 1965 RC I sold 5 years ago, a dumb move on my part. I have almost all of the base and inserts between 2001-2010 ( I do about 80-90% of the sets), with so many new products appearing I decided not to do them all. Storing them becomes an issue as I added parallels between 1991-1996, and most of 1997. It becomes too big a collection to do all the Pacific, Collector's Edge etc up to 2000, for 2010 onwards, trying to keep up with all the Topps / Panini rainbows impossible. I think from 1991 it most be 400-500 different cards a year in 1 binder, from 1995 it became 2 binders, 1996 & 1997 are three binders, every year since 1998 has been two binders. I have around 2300 different autos from 1991-2016, mostly the base autos in with the team sets and inserts. The binders are collated in alphabetical order, so it used to lead off with Action Packed, Bowman through to Topps, Upper Deck & Wild Card with the stripe parallels following, it's easy for me to find any card. For sets like Contenders, I stick to base, but for Score I collect down to Red Zone, from Prizm only the parallels I care for, so there is no clear logic to the collection, but with odd excel spreadsheets I have, I can generally cross reference what I have as I collect a new year of Score, Prizm, Contenders etc. I can't afford the very high end 1 of 1's like collectors have talked about in the last few days, Sheldon Richardson 1 of 1's etc, if I was doing something like that, it would be special individual holders or screwdowns for protection and not binders.

It's funny how the number of cards has blown up over the years will all of the manufacturers, and now one manufacturer with all the sets. I have my Broncos cards from 1960 to 1990 in one binder, 1991 to 1993 in a second binder, and 1994 and 1995 in a third binder. Those were the only years I tried to get everything. As you said, after that, you could fill one or two binders for each year of cards if you collect them all!

[kylocke]

Yeah, and its even worse if you are collecting parallels (which is why I choose to ignore them for this project). If you are interested, I ended up building a database and website around my collection so I could get what I am missing on the fly.

http://kodoir.com/bills/index.php

Clicking a year will show you a breakdown by set.

[bojesphob]

Originally Posted by kylocke

Yeah, and its even worse if you are collecting parallels (which is why I choose to ignore them for this project). If you are interested, I ended up building a database and website around my collection so I could get what I am missing on the fly.

http://kodoir.com/bills/index.php

Clicking a year will show you a breakdown by set.

I like the looks of your pages over the ones I wrote, although I'm not good at making web pages look good (just making them work well). Wish I had an eye for that sort of thing to improve what I wrote.

[kylocke]

Originally Posted by bojesphob

I like the looks of your pages over the ones I wrote, although I'm not good at making web pages look good (just making them work well). Wish I had an eye for that sort of thing to improve what I wrote.

I am more of a functional person as well. It looked pretty basic and bland when I first got it working, but it did exactly what I wanted it to do. I took a few hours to apply minor CSS just to clean it up a bit because I knew I would be linking it out at some point to folks as I continue to look for cards.

[kyle1707]

Over last 5 years.. i use the ultra pro pages..

I have 20 ginter sets and 15 heritage sets all in pages binders..

I look at them a few times a year.. everything looks great...

[pazerbaijan]

If you're storing cards in a binder, it's a good idea to lay them flat instead of standing them up on a shelf. Over time, the pages will start to sag and damage the cards closest to the spine.