How do you organize your binders?

 A few days ago Night Owl did a post talking about his card room and his binder shelves. After looking at the pictures of his binder shelves, the binders, and hearing him talk about organizing cards the post before that, it got me wondering what exactly one of the insides of his binders looks like. For that matter, what do the binders of other bloggers I follow look like?

I would love it if in one of their next posts that anyone who reads this that has a blog would post a few pictures or maybe a video of one of their binders. It could be one of a favorite team, a favorite player, or a  certain type of collection (double plays, blowing bubbles). I don’t really get the whole ‘frankenset’ thing, but if none of the other things fit, feel free to show a frankenset binder. The only thing I would ask is just not to make it a binder with a complete set as that might get a tad boring. If you don’t store your cards in binders, I’d love to see a video or pictures of however  you store your cards, whether that be in boxes or whatever. 

However you store the cards, I’d love a write up of why you chose the storage method that you use and any specific way you use to organize them (by year, alphabetically, double bagged, by player) and maybe how often you update your cards. 

While I would love for this to become a Blog Bat Around, I’m smart enough to know it probably won’t happen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this topic has already been covered before. If I can just get a few people to let me into their binders and let me see what their organization is like and why they choose that way I think it will be interesting. Maybe readers will find a new way to store their cards. Maybe they will find an easier way to get cards sorted. And I’m sure everyone will find some cool new cards to add to their wantlists as a result of looking through everyone’s binders. In my job as a baker at a grocery store, as much as I think I know from baking for 7 years and being called the best baker in the district by multiple District Managers, it never fails that a new manager/assistant manager/baker comes in and I learn something from them and it makes my skills better to see a task performed by multiple people. I've helped some people do things better/quicker, and they've helped me do the same. I hope that maybe this could do so for your collection and give me some tips on how to make my cards get organized better. 

With that being said, here are some pictures of 2 of my binders and some explanations (sorry, video was too long to post). 

Here is my Rays binder. I have the binder organized by year, oldest first. Then it is separated by set names alphabetically, and player last name alphabetically. This makes it a little easier to organize, especially if I have nothing but newer cards. If I have an insert, it goes after the player base card. If it is a parallel, it goes at the very end of the set. If it is a multi-player card with the same teams pictured, I put it with the more well known player of them or my favorite player. Some sets I am weird about the names. For Topps Allen & Ginter, Fleer Ultra, Topps Stadium Club, and Upper Deck Collector's Choice, I have them as 'Allen & Ginter', 'Ultra', 'Stadium Club', and 'Collector's Choice, so sometimes when looking for cards in other team binders and trying to look through someone's want list, I'll be at Topps and their wantlist will then to to 'Topps Allen & Ginter', and I have to flip back a few pages to find my Allen & Ginters. Not a big deal. 

I put Bowman Chrome before Bowman's Best because technically the extra letter in 'Bowman's' would come after 'Bowman'. Then on to the Donruss cards and Donruss Diamond Kings. I put any autograph, valuable, rookie card, and many jersey cards in penny sleeves before they go in the binders, and double bag the pages as well because I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on pages and albums and bookshelves. 

With parallels, they are alphabetized, so the Lime Green card comes before the Pink one. The McKay card reminded me that the year before he had an SP or variation in Stadium Club and I put those with the regular set. The regular card is first, then the SP or variation. With inserts, the card numbers are alphabetized, so that's how I did it with Randy's 3 inserts. 

I don't know if you caught it, but a few of the cards in this page are customs. I put them with whatever set they are a part of just like they were included in the regular set. 

Any combo cards are put at the end of the team, as well as a team or stadium card. These cards are organized by number, with customs coming at the end by their number that I give them from my set pages. 

Nothing new on these pages, just more parallels. 

Take note of the postseason highlight cards. These are tricky for me. My Rays and Tigers binder trump everything for me except for a card of a favorite player. If neither of these, they will go in the highlights binder, and if I get a double, it would go in whatever team binder. For these Rays ones, I put them first at the end of the team set. Once I get a double, it goes with the player, with the lowest card number going in first. 

A jersey card is an insert, so it goes after the players' base card. 

And that finishes out the 2021 part of my Rays binder and brings us into 2022. 

Here is a page from my Favorite Players binder. 

Generally the same rule of thumb. This time, it is organized alphabetically by player last name. This can be a pain, because I could organize 6 binders on 2 days off, and then pull a Xander Bogearts card out of a pack the next day and then it would be time to reorganize. But, as you can see, it's the same thing, organized by year, and then alphabetically by set name. With the Brody Koerner card in the bottom left corner of the right page, it is autographed. I had dinner with him and some of Karen's relatives at Dave & Busters in 2016 while he was in the minors. He signed the card for me before we left. At one point when I was racking up autographs, I had an autograph binder organized by year, set, and number. I sold most of my autographed cards, and if I have an autographed card like this, I just put it in my binders like it is a normal card, so if it's a Ray, it goes in the Rays binder. If it's a Cub, it goes in the Cubs binder. If it's a favorite player, it goes in that binder. If it's a Yankee, it goes in the trash. 

Lastly, the general fault for why I organize my binders this way was because of a book I got when I was in 3rd grade or so. 

It has been worn from 30 or so years of reading, but it basically contained pictures of every Topps St. Louis Cardinals card from 1952-1987. 

It basically contained a write up of each season and that years' cards (don't know why they didn't go with the 'yearbook style' format. Most of the sets in the book didn't have a Traded series, and some of them didn't even include pictures of the Traded cards). 

At the end of each set was the team card or the team leaders card for the '86 and '87 sets. I went against them with the rookie combo cards and put them with the most well known player, but other than that I figure if Topps prints a book and organizes their cards this way, then why shouldn't I?

Just to recap, if you feel like participating, write a post on how you organize your binders/boxes and why you do so and post some pictures or a video if you feel like it. You can either post a link to your post in the comments or I'll probably catch it on my blogroll. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy