Bloggers Note: This is the s of a series of 4 Tips On
Collecting Sorting edition. Now remember, this is how I sort my cards.
These tips are to give you some ideas on what you may want to do with
your own collection and not what you have to do. Since I don't sell any cards and keep what I get, there is a lot to sort and this is how I break it all down.
It
all starts with a pack or two of football cards. After opening them up,
you may ask, what do I do with them now? Some of you may toss the base
cards in the trash or off to the side. Then you may take out your PC
stuff and then the rest is for sale. As for how I would sort these, this
isn't how I would do it.
Now, my form of sorting is a little time consuming. But I am very well organized. Here is how I would sort the football cards:
After
opening up the football cards, I know there is a long road to sorting.
First I search for PC, NY Giants. Pile One. I then take out the inserts or
hits for Pile 2 and 3 is if there is a jersey or auto hits. After that I take out all of the non autographed/ jersey rookies making up Pile 4. Pile 5 will consist of Star players (players I
consider a star based on if they are listed under a products pricing in
Beckett and a few others I like as well). And that leaves pile 6, which are base cards. There is even a
Pile 7 but that will come later on.
Now with
Pile 1, I separate my favorite NY Giants pile out players out. Eli Manning, Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz, David Wilson, Reuben Randle. Those guys are my favorite and get a section to themselves in the NY Giants binder. After that, the rookies get their own section. The remaining Giants just go into the binder in the back section. I sometimes will have to backtrack to make sure I don't have duplicates of the cards I am putting in. Those duplicates I put into Pile 7. I label the
outside of the binder with a NYG1. All of my binders are labeled.
Pile 2, With the inserts,
I take out the star players I keep like I do in Pile 5 and place them that pile. I also pull any rookie inserts and put them by themselves. They get placed into a binder marked RC Inserts. This is the only sport I do this with. With the rest of the inserts I put them into my insert binder unless the insert
is valued above $20. The ones valued over $20 get placed into a penny
sleeve, top loader and are placed into a tote that is labeled inserts.
If there are any duplications, those get pulled and placed into another
pile which we call Pile 7.
Pile 3,
jersey or thick cards are placed into a 50-100 count plastic box. If I
happen to have a 25 count box, which is a perfect size for jersey cards without
damaging them, I use that so they are all in their own cases. The
autographs I place into penny sleeves then into top loaders and into a
separate tote.
Pile 4 of rookies gets separated by teams. Then they are placed into a binder that way as well. The binder has separators with team names. If there are any duplications, I keep em. Hobby is all about rookies and you never know who will turn big.
Pile 5
of star players get sorted by player, then placed into a 800 count
white box labeled Ftball players on the outside. Each player is labeled
and separated by index cards. I used to store these in binders but found
it easier to use the boxes. If there are any duplications, those get
pulled and placed into pile 7. Sometimes with these it takes extra work
if you buy older products. I go through and search just to make sure I
don't have any duplications between the new one I just got and to the
older ones already in the box. Can be time consuming.
Pile 6 can
be the most time consuming of all. I take all of the base cards, sort
them by number. I then place them into 800 count white boxes. I label
them by brand and year. The outside of the box I put a number depending
on what box I am on but for an example the number 7. I then take the number 7,
write it into a book. And write the contents inside for easy searching if I happen to buy more of the product or have to go back and search for a player.
Depending on how many I have of each product, every box holds between
6-7 different brands.
And finally this leaves us with
Pile 7,
which is the duplications. The inserts I use for giveaways on here along with other cards:)
The double base cards and star players I use to build the Yard Sale
boxes I spoke of on the blog a couple of times. Keeping the hobby alive at a cheap price!
Now this
seems like a lot of work and yes it is. So don't ever fall too far
behind on sorting. But I find this sorting really efficient and easy to
find stuff you need or are looking for. Not to mention weeds out your doubles.
Let me know your thoughts on this crazy sorting. And how you sort your football cards.
