Ultra Dilemma

You ever back yourself into a corner with some aspect of your collection? Player collectors and set collectors come to mind first. The insanity of chasing every card of one player boggles my mind. In terms of sets it would be the feeling of never being finished. The new sets have some many sp's that the dollar amounts to complete are going through the roof.  

I'm more of a team collector than anything. Part of the reason I do this is to not fall under the trap of feeling like I need to buy a card. This allows me to shift gears between WVU and Pirates without feeling like I missed something. 

My dilemma is how I protect my cards. Back about 5 or 6 years ago I made a purchase of an entire case of Ultra Pro One-Touch magnetic cases (I wasn't married yet so I made silly purchases like this). It was the standard 35pt and it was a great deal. The seller looked to be liquidating the contents of a card or comic shop. As it turned out the seller had multiple cases of different sizes. Once I had bought a few cases the seller contacted me and we made a deal for several more for one price. I was stocked for the long haul

Since I had so many at my disposal I was way too liberal on the usage of the cases. Hell, if I was trading with the Card Papoy back then I would have put the Bieber card in a one touch. Fast Forward to present day and I've finally begun to run out. 

This is how I store higher end cards

The first fix is going to be a full fledged review to see which cards are One-Touch Worthy. This should free up a good amount and allow me a little breathing room. My evaluation system before was "hey this card is cool" so I placed it in a One-Touch. Now I need to be a little more choosy. 

The hard question to answer is if I should continue buying the cases for future cards. I'm not the most organized person in the world, but this is one area I've been very consistent. Obviously the main issue is money. As most of you know these cases are not cheap.  Also, cards are getting very thick so I would need to purchase more cases that are 130pt or higher. As you go higher in thickness prices of the cases soar as well. 

A couple months back I made an eBay purchase of a big lot of pre-used cases. Some were a little scratched or had price tags on them, but the discount more than made up for the blemishes.  I'm thinking this might be the best course of action for the immediate future. If I can find one or two lots like this a year I should be fine. 

What this doesn't help with is the really thick cards. I never see lots for the 130pt or above cases and that is what I'm running out of right now. The way card companies are trending I'm going to need a bunch of this size. The easy answer would be just to start storing these cards another way, but I've been doing it this way for a long time and I really don't want to change.