Bloggers Note: This is the third 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 basketball 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 baseball cards:
After opening up basketball cards, I know there is a long road to sorting. But not as long as the other two sports I collect more of. Basketball is an occasional sport for me. It all depends on the rookie class whether I buy in or not and how much I get. Or the product. First I search for rookies and rookie inserts that makes up Pile One. I then take out the remaining inserts or hits for Piles 2 and 3 is if there is a jersey or auto hits. Pile 4 will consist of Star players (players I consider a star I base on if they are listed under a products pricing in Beckett and players I like). And Pile 5 leaves us with the base cards. Pile 6 is for duplicates.
Now with Pile 1, I take all of the rookies and just put them all together into one binder. The binder is marked bsktball rookies. This also includes basketball rookie inserts. (one of my future projects is putting all of the rookies by team)
Pile 2, the inserts, I take out the star players I keep like I do in Pile 4 and place them in that pile. With the rest 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 Pile 6.
Pile 3, jersey or thick cards are placed into a 50-100 count plastic box. If I happen to have a 25 count box, 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 star players get sorted by player, then placed into a 800 count white box labeled Bsktbll 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 5 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 7. I then take the number 7, write it into a book. And write the contents inside for easy searching. Depending on how many I have of each product, every box holds between 6-7 different brands.
And finally this leaves us with Pile 6, which is the duplications. The inserts I use for giveaways on here along with others :) The double base cards and star players I use to build the Yard Sale boxes I spoke of on here a couple of times.
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.
Let me know your thoughts on this crazy sorting. And how you sort your basketball cards.
Update: We also forgot to add what we do with cards such as Upper Deck. Since these cards we don't consider rookies since they are not NBA licensed, they get put into a small to medium sized binder marked by the year we get them. The binder is marked 2012-2013 for this year.
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