The amount of cards I have stored away waiting to be sorted is intimidating. I enjoy the sorting process, but time wasn't on my side to tackle big projects. I needed to think of ways where I can have a continuous project without having tons of cards all over the place. My daughter can be awfully curious with items left in arms length.
Easter weekend left a ton of time to think things out and put a new plan in action. I jokingly (kind of) told Wes he caused me to reinvent the way I collect. In actuality this has been brewing ever since I started blogging. Before I would just order a few cards at a time from eBay so the pace was more controlled. Now with multiple trade partners cards are flowing into Morgantown at a more rapid pace.
The process over the next couple of months.
1. Organize the WVU collection - I can take one of those hastily put together monster boxes and pull the WVU cards in a matter of minutes. A few weeks back I started organizing alphabetically in binders so the hard work is done.
2. Sort out auto/relics - As I mentioned above one of the bigger organizing pitfalls is tackling too much at one time. One easy thing to do while pulling out WVU cards is putting aside "hits." Not quite sure how I'm going to organize those but at least they will on be in spot.
3. Organizing as cards arrive - This is where advice is needed. For those that are just team collectors what has worked best. In my mind would be keeping guys that have a ton of cards like Cutch in their own binders and then sorting by year. What has worked best for all of you?
The process continues.....but at least I have a plan.
Thanks for reading.
ah, the answer is here.. JK.. when you find out how to stay on top of things let us all know. LOL.
ReplyDeleteHaha. I'm trying to at least have a plan. I know I can't keep up but I can at least try!
DeleteHow can you stay on top of things when Wes is running to the post office so much lol
ReplyDeleteHa! Same thing I was thinking.
DeleteI organize as I go. I have a shelf in my card closet with little labels for my different collections... eventually I'll grab a stack and start sorting, but at least everything in that stack belongs in the same box/binder.
When you get a huge influx of cards at once you have to throw your system out the window and just knock out a little bit at a time. Stay patient and enjoy the process is my mantra.
Team stuff I've been so-far just going by year. But then I've been mainly focusing on 1980 and earlier stuff. As I get into the 80s and later I can see how this would not longer hold up as more and more oddballs and brands come into play.
ReplyDeleteRegarding when cards come in? I try and do a quick sort based on how the collection is organized (by year for Giants, by player for Stanford, etc.) as soon as I can then, once everything is documented for a post, merge the quick sorts together until I have time to do a deeper sort/investigation/cataloging.
Where I have problems is in any extra-thick cards that don't fit in binder pages. They don't fit my existing organization and so right now they're in toploaders or team bags in a box on my desk.
My one regret is not starting some sort of organization process when I started blogging. The thought of receiving so many cards via trade never popped in my head. I new I was going to trade, but thought it would be more one for one type of deals. I'm pumped it turned out the way it did but definitely paying the price.
DeleteI organize on the fly so the closest to whatever you're planning is probably organizing as the cards come in. My only advice is to keep it simple by immediately separating the cards into three categories. Stuff you can use for your collection(s), stuff that you can't use that you can send to other people, and stuff that don't quite fit your collections but is just so cool that you want to keep it around anyway. Trust me, you will need all three of these categories. The stuff you don't need and want to send to someone else is easy because you can just throw it all into a box until someone claims them. The other two can be fairly simple as long as you remember/manage to put them away within an hour of receiving them.
ReplyDeleteI've always set the trade bait aside so that hasn't been too bad. Getting the WVU collection together will be a big hurdle. While I don't post about it very often it is a very active one.
DeleteStill not quite sure what to do with all those Pirates.
I'm like you - have a bunch of daunting boxes to attack that consist of a bunch of cards that came in over the last year.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm going to be able to have binders for a bunch of individual players like Cutch, Bay and Jack Wilson. I think that will be my first Pirates project once I get the WVU and "hits" situated.
DeleteTeam binders are organized by year.
ReplyDeleteI organize twice a year, corresponding with immediately after the 2 notable card shows on the calendar. The rest of the year, cards sit around waiting to be added to binders in various piles, depending on their destinations.
That is the way I'm leaning as well. I may start a few binders for individual players just because I know I have so many.
DeleteI have the Sox box right now. If anything, it helps me get all the cards by year for the team collection. Autos have their own binder, as does relics. Certain sets get binders, but there are others I need to binder up. But that requires binders and pages, which requires money, or at least discipline to spend money on that instead of cards.
ReplyDeleteBinders for autos and relics seems like a good idea for me too. Buying supplies is rough....
DeleteI've wanted to kill my system for a while, and recently did a tinkering with it.
ReplyDeleteI had all the cards sorted by year, and then alphabetically by player. And, yes, when I got to it, it was always trouble to have to resort the pages as new cards were added. I would often add pages at various in the middle and then shift cards one way or the other, depending on what was closer.
I used to try to put almost any card that would fit in the binder - the exceptions being very low serial-numbered cards, or cards that I arbitrarily determined to be too valuable to add to the binders.
I recently pulled all relic cards out of the binder pages and have them sitting in boxes, but still sorted alphabetically by year.
I also took the time to go through my collection and compare it to what I had listed on the Trading Card Database. I found some cards were missing from my collection, and that I had identified some cards and parallels wrong. I've fixed what I could, and dug through my doubles and found some of the missing collection cards. I'm now trying to sort my Browns doubles, which are more numerous than I expected.
Good luck on fixing your process!
My hope is to at least get some resemblance of order with the hope of even more detail later. Whether that be an online database or something I do on my own is up in the air.
DeleteI pretty much organize as I go. Filing is the longer process with me. I currently have a big box of cards on the living room table all organized, but still waiting to be filed away. It's the process that's kept me the most sane over the years.
ReplyDeleteDuring my bachelor years that was pretty much me. I had cards everywhere. The daughter is just a little too curious now to keep things out.
DeleteThis is exactly why I prefer set collecting. :p
ReplyDeleteBTW... you'll have a bit more mess in a couple days.
No complaints my friend....who knows I may even sort them when they come in!
DeleteI try to organize as I go, too, though admittedly my collecting scope is vastly smaller than most. If I don't do this, I kind of get anxious (personality trait about clutter, things left out, etc.)...
ReplyDeletePlayer collectors can be more detailed and thorough for sure. I just like variety too much..
DeleteThe monster box path is a dark path to travel down. I know, because I've been there. It's so easy to just keep throwing cards into it... until you realize that one day those cards need to be sorted. Or worse... you don't sort them and they keep piling up.
ReplyDeleteIronically... I'm going to the wholesaler today to buy at least two more monster boxes.
I had a ton of them from when I moved to my house a handful of years back. I was actually pretty good about sorting until I started blogging. Just couldn't keep up. Having a kid will do that I guess.
Delete