Thursday, December 03, 2009

Making sense of my player collections - something to gnaw about during the winter time

Player binders - a lot of my base cards/inserts featuring 'notable' players are stored in binders.

Picking up a small grouping of players' cards [coming out of a pack or from a stack put together from a show or card shop] - to put them away in binders seemed like a ritualistic process I enjoyed.

Now, I don't want to make it more work for myself - however, I may make some gradual changes over time, so I can organize the cards in a relevant way they will last as long as I'm collecting.

The most important goal is to get away from the 'storage aspect' and make the my collection of individual players cards more of a true display - so I can look through the binders like a book instead of a place to dumb my base cards/insters.

I don't want to change things up entirely - I still would like to maintain some order and familiarity.

A.) ABC order by player - doesn't quite work because I don't want it to be too rigid; I probably do need to label binders to figure out whose cards are featured in each particular one.
B.) Realignment - maybe binders need to be updated as far as whether or not I care about collecting a particular player's cards anymore by default. Meaning I might have been picking up cards of a players might not be a personal favorite, but once was an all-star for example. Now the player isn't as relevant and maybe my interest has waned.
C.) Space issues - I store two cards in one nine-pocket sheet as long as I feel like the cards will not damage each other. In many instances, I will store one card in a pocket, if the card is an insert/parallel or rookie/first-year card.
D.) Particular arrangement of cards featured on one nine-pocket plastic sheet - I want to say it doesn't matter [as far as putting them by year, by type, et al], because I don't want to move the cards around too much in order to account for any possible updates.

Personal favorites

I freed up one binder housing a partial set from a 2004 Topps Traded break a while ago, to store my assorted Vladimir Guerrero, Tim Salmon and Jim Edmonds cards - the cards are in no discernable order, but it will have to do.

A.) I'd planned to add seven other 'personal favorites,' but Guerrero, Salmon and Edmonds actually filled out the binder - so those three represent my favorite players.

Realignment
For another, particular binder holding players' cards I've collected for the last five or six years - I realigned the order and also move daround players.

A.) Players' cards removed from binder and place into A-Z archives box - none are 'personal favorites' and basically there is no compelling reason to keep these guys' cards in binders at this point.

Ellis Burks
Brian Giles
Jason Kendall
Kerry Wood
Edgar Renteria
Pat Burrell
Steve Finley
Bartolo Colon


B.) Players' cards added to binder - cards of these some of these players were once stored in a binder, but were displaced.

Carlos Zambrano - from my semistars box
Albert Belle - he is sort of irrelevant these days, but was a beast when he was playing.
Andy Pettitte
Greg Maddux
Mike Lowell
Roy Halladay
Johan Santana
- from my semistars box

C.) Holdovers from original binder arrangement

Todd Helton
Adrian Beltre
Roy Oswalt
Lance Berkman
Joe Mauer
Nolan Ryan
Randy Johnson
Curt Schilling
Mike Sweeney
Kevin Millwood
Carlos Lee
Carlos Beltran


D.) New order of players' cards for one particular binder

Todd Helton
Adrian Beltre
Roy Oswalt
Lance Berkman
Carlos Zambrano
Joe Mauer
Albert Belle
Andy Pettitte
Greg Maddux
Nolan Ryan
Randy Johnson
Curt Schilling
Mike Sweeney
Mike Lowell
Roy Halladay
Kevin Millwood
Johan Santana
Carlos Lee
Carlos Beltran

2 comments:

Field of Cards said...

Ha ha. It's funny how complicated it gets. I have a whole system too:

1. No more than 18 of one card in a book (this is usually junk wax I still hoard) or deals on lots I couldn't resist. Any overspill goes into labeled storage boxes and a note goes in the plastic sheet saying how many are in the box. That way I can still enjoy hoarding but won't have to flip through ten pages of 1985 Topps Rod Carews or whatever. It keeps looking through the books enjoyable.

2. Autos and game used and inserts go on the first pages of each player, followed by oldest cards through newest.

3. I have separate boxes for 'semi stars'. These are not in the "overspill" star boxes. These include players like Finley, Edmonds, Derek Lee etc. However their inserts and special cards or really cool cards make the binders.

4. Binders are alphabetized. I do this just because it makes it easier to continue this madness.

I'm sure there are a lot more rules I've made but I forget. And when a new rule clashes with an old rule there is quite an internal battle.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I need to rethink my game plan. You guys have rules...

I have a several binders for Brewer team sets, by decade

I have a binder for Brewer players that I collect- Fielder, Braun, Bush, Gallardo, etc

A binder for Players I really like - Pujols, Mauer, Griffey, Howard, etc

A binder for HOFs

All organized by player, but not card series or type. Only one of each card allowed, no exceptions.

Set collections go in boxes.

I have tried to get more organized but it is very difficult, especially when there are stacks of cards on my desk. I didn't mention the boxes of dups...