A ton of collectors are sifting through their collections for the first time in 20 years, desperately wishing they knew how to protect sports cards better!
I know I wish I had—out of my 6k cards, I only sent in 12 for grading. I have a Kobe rookie (pictured below) that would honestly grade as a PSA 2 or 3 because it’s so beat up.
The most common way to protect sports cards is to put them in penny sleeves and a top loader. For lesser cards, simply a penny sleeve and then in a 3,200 count box works. For top-end cards, a magnetic card holder or getting it slabbed would be your best option.
There are plenty of options out there—let’s talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Best Ways to Protect Trading Cards
1. Penny Sleeve + Top Loader
Like I said above, for cards that you just want to protect for the long haul, the most common answer is penny sleeve + top loader.
Penny sleeves are the soft card holders. They’re dirt cheap (hence the name penny sleeve) and they fit fairly snugly around the card.
Once in a penny sleeve, the card should slip easily into your top loader.
Top loaders are rigid enough to protect your cards reasonably well, and are great for shipping.
Pick the Right Top Loader
It’s not as simple as just grabbing the first one you see, unfortunately.
Different cards come in different thicknesses—a paper card is going to be much thinner than a chrome card, and patch cards come in all sorts of varied thicknesses!
They determine thickness by “points.” The more points, the thicker the card is.
I keep four different thicknesses at home:
35pt, 55pt, 105pt, and 180pt.
Between these, I can safely store virtually any size of card. Keep in mind that you’ll need thicker penny sleeves as well when you get up to the thickest cards.
The easiest way to decide which thickness to use is to gently try to put your card in. If it doesn’t slide in easily, grab the next thickness up! Shoving a card into a too-small top loader is going to screw up the surface of the card for sure.
Also, and I can’t stress this enough, always buy a legitimate brand!
I’ve tried to cheap out because top loaders ain’t that cheap (at least when you buy them in large quantities). This ends up costing me more because I end up throwing half of them out.
=> Here are the Top Loaders that I use
2. Magnetic Card Holder
These are typically used for higher-end and/or display cards!
They are thick and sturdy, and just look snazzy. They basically replaced the old screw-down cases that I used to have as a kid because these are much easier to use (magnets!).
However, I have seen some hardcore collectors put down magnetic card holders because they say your cards’ corners can get damaged. They suggest buying the ones where you can fit the card in a penny sleeve first and then in the magnetic holder.
I for one think this is a little excessive, but if you want extra protection, it’s something to consider.
=> Here are the Magnetic Card Holders I use
3. Slab
The absolute best way to protect cards is to send them into a grading company and get it slabbed.
These cases are meant to be extremely durable and difficult to open. Even if you drop one, you might crack the case but the card will likely be okay.
Then of course, slabbed cards just look great! You get a nice label, and the cards are always perfectly centered (unlike a top loader).
You can have the grade on the label, or even just the card authenticated if it’s a forever PC card.
If you’re trying to decide which grading company to go with, I put together a huge review post about the state of grading right now:
Reviewing the Complete List of Sports Cards Grading Companies (2023)
For added protection, collectors with many slabs will buy cases designed to protect and carry your cards around.
These are especially useful when going to a card show and you need to bring a huge quantity of slabs with you.
I personally don’t have one, but a popular choice are the Zion Cases at The Collection Case. Pricey, but many people swear by them.
4. Penny Sleeve + Box
Top loaders are too pricey and take up too much space to protect every card you want to keep (in my opinion).
For example, I’m a big fan of sleeving every rookie card I get (as I detail in this post about How to Organize Your Baseball Cards in 11 Steps)
This keeps my cards from “bricking” which is when cards stick together when they’re lined up in a box together for a long period of time—especially in more humid areas.
I definitely go through a LOT of penny sleeves, but they’re cheap. I also think about how I bet people didn’t take great care of their Tom Brady rookies because what 6th round pick turns out to be a star?
=> Here are the penny sleeves that I buy
The Worst Ways to Protect Sports Cards
Binders
Binders are popular because it’s easy to look through an entire collection in a few minutes! I spent many hours flipping through mine as a kid.
However, they are not kind to cards! Getting them in and out, the weight of the other cards on them, being flipped constantly, cards sliding out (which happens a lot), and the metal rings pushing on the cards all lead to damage!
I’m never going to put cards in a binder again. The only time I might consider it would be if I were collecting cheap sets and didn’t care about value.
Non-Recessed Screw Downs
No one really uses these anymore—this is more a note for collectors with older cards that haven’t been taken out of a screw down.
Some screw downs are just fine—if there’s a recessed space for the card to fit comfortably inside, you’re good.
However, a lot of the old-school screw downs were just two pieces of flat plastic that sandwiched the card. Then each corner had a screw.
In order to keep the card in place, you had to literally smash the card by screwing the plastic down hard.
Yeah…doesn’t sound like a smart idea!
In many cases, parts of the card will actually come off when taken out of a screw down…
I’ve also seen many grading companies reject cards that came out of a non-recessed screw down because the card’s been “altered” (aka smashed).
(I recently tried to send my dad’s ’65 Mantle into get graded. Came back “altered” because it spent 50+ years in a screw-down)
Top Loaders Without Penny Sleeves
Penny sleeves soft enough to not scratch your cards. Top loaders not so much. It’s way to easy to scratch the card, especially on the lip of the holder as you put them in.
Semi-Rigid Card Holders
While these aren’t the worst option, they’re also not the best for long-term storage.
These are like top loaders, except they’re softer (thus “semi-rigid”) and have one part of the top longer than the other.
This makes cards fairly easy to get in and out. They’re popular for grading card submissions as the card is less likely to sustain damage as the grader pulls out the card.
In fact, many grading companies used to only accept semi-rigid holders for submissions. Most have since relaxed this requirement and top loaders are usually accepted.
I don’t mind having someone handle my cards that are in top loaders. I cringe when someone holds one of my cards that is in a semi-rigid holder. That’s all the reasoning I need.
