Once you start getting heavy into card collecting, it’s amazing how fast the cards can pile up! Just a few weeks ago, I had a 12-box order show show up on my birthday…I ripped those suckers but now there are STILL piles on my desk.
Whether you’re going through old shoe boxes, ordering lots of singles or (like me) ripping lots of cards, you’ve got to have an organization structure. This way you can enjoy your cards, keep things clean, and even be organized enough to sell them at the right times.
For example, if you buy a nice baseball rookie in the off-season to flip, you want to remember where you put that thing once spring training starts…instead of just having it on your desk somewhere.
Organizing Baseball Cards in 11 Steps
Here’s my process:
- Cards Worthless to you Go in Commons Box
- Base Cards of Potentially Great Players Stay Naked
- All-Timers Get Top Loaded
- All Rookies (and Bowman 1sts) Get Sleeved
- Low-Value Cards Get Sleeved
- Cards to Get Graded Go in Card Savers
- Cards to Sell Go in Top Loaders
- Cards to Keep Long-Term in Top Loaders
- Determine Your Organization System
- Catalog Your Cards Manually & Digitally
- Rinse & Repeat With All Cards!
1. Cards Worthless to you Go in Commons Box
So for the purpose of these steps, I’m going to treat it like your ripping a brand new box. Once you’ve opened it, what do you do with the cards inside? What’s my process for organizing them?
Well, the first step is to sort out all the cards you’re not interested in. This is mostly going to be base veteran cards for players that aren’t hall of famers…and sometimes even them! If I’ve opened a cheap product (say Topps Series 1) and I get a Max Scherzer base card, I’m still probably putting it in a commons box.
I know he’s a great player and going to be a hall of famer…but that card isn’t going to be worth anything in the next 20 years. Some may differ with me on this, but I have enough cards to deal with that I put many borderline cards in my commons box.
Also, even parallels or insert cards will get put in my commons box if they’re not anyone of note.
So for me, it’s based first on who the player is and then secondly on the brand (if I had a Topps Chrome Max Scherzer I’d probably keep it somewhere less ignominious).
2. Base Cards of Potentially Great Players Stay Naked
For me, these are the guys like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. They’re on the trajectory to be someone awesome, so I want to keep them…but right now a base card isn’t really worth anything. I’m not going to worry too much about a sleeve or top loader.
If I have a sleeve handy, I may throw one in and then put it in my cardboard box with my other sleeved cards. Depends how I’m feeling and how much I like the player.
3. All-Timers Get Top Loaded
Even if it’s a base card from a cheap set, I’m going to put Mike Trout in a sleeve. He deserves your respect!
Guys like that carry value that only goes up over time. Even cheapo Jordan cards that were overproduced like crazy still sell well, especially if they’re graded.
That’s one of the most common cards ever made, AND it was selling for much more than this a few months ago.
Pujols, Mahomes, Brady, Lebron…those guys get the immediate sleeve treatment and usually a top loader as well.
4. All Rookies (and Bowman 1sts) Get Sleeved
I’ve told this story before, but when I got back into collecting, I decided to go through my commons box. I had about 5,000 cards…not a ton, but for a 13-year-old, that’s quite a bit!
Anyway, I found TWO Steve Nash rookies in there! I was baffled at first, but then I remembered that he’d had a pretty slow start to his career. When I put my collection in storage, he still wasn’t a highly sought after player.
And now those cards are pretty trashed. They’re probably only worth a couple of bucks, but if they’d been in gradable condition, I could’ve done pretty well.
I think about someone like Nikola Jokic in the NBA. Second round pick, but now an MVP. Only a few crazy people were likely putting his cards in top loaders in 2015.
Each year, I’ll go back through all these rookies to see if any of them have popped. If a couple years pass and they’re still nobodies, they move to my common box and their sleeves get used elsewhere. It’s like hand-me-down underwear.
5. Low-Value Cards Get Sleeved
Anything that’s worth just a couple of bucks and isn’t a rookie will often get sleeved up.
In all honesty, I don’t have a ton of these because I typically sell anything that doesn’t have long-term value but can fetch a few bucks. I like the hustle of selling cheap cards on eBay to get my feedback up. It also offsets some of my costs for buying boxes.
A lot of these are going to be inserts that don’t carry their value super well, but either I think they’re cool or it’s a good player that might be worth holding onto.
If you’re not too sure how to value your cards quickly and effectively, check out my guide called How Do I Find Out How Much my Baseball Cards Are Worth?
6. Cards to Get Graded Go in Card Savers
When opening my boxes, I can tell pretty much right away which ones are the types of cards I want to grade. Typically, these are high quality rookies, such as ones that are serial-numbered, autos, parallels, or base cards from a quality set.
When I pull cards like these, I put them immediately into card savers and put them in my “Potential Grade” box.
Then when I have time, I look at these cards under a bright light and a loupe to determine if I want to get them graded.
7. Cards to Sell Go in Top Loaders
When I pull a card that I think will be one to sell right away (inserts, rookies I don’t think will make it, rookies in college unis, etc.), I usually sleeve them and put them in my box marked “pics needed.”
After I take the pic, they go straight into a top loader and then in my box marked “Listed eBay.” (I know, my boxes and my handwriting suck in that pic above…but the system works!)
If it never sells, it’s already top loaded and ready to go into a box. However, most of the ones that don’t sell are very cheap cards, so often I’ll take them out of the top loader, leave them in the sleeve, and then store them away.
8. Cards to Keep Long-Term in Top Loaders
Any cards that I’m planning to hold for either my PC (personal collection) or to sell at a later date (high-potential rookies, or wait for the sport’s season) get put into a top loader and into one of my cardboard boxes
9. Determine Your Organization System
Alright! This part’s fun…and time consuming…and sometimes maddening if you can’t quite figure out the right way that you want them organized!
I know, I’ve talked about naked, sleeved, top loaders and putting them in boxes…but how do I do that?
Here’s how I organize them!
By Sport
Football, basketball, and baseball are all kept separated.
Toploader vs Naked/Sleeved
I keep the toploaders in separate boxes from the naked/sleeved ones! It’s a pretty good way to separate by card value because anything with current value or great future potential is in a top loader. I know to sift through those more often to see if it’s the right time to sell any of them… or just admire them because they’re awesome!. All my cheap inserts, lower-value rookies, and base cards of great players are in another box that I know I don’t need to go through very often.
My Old Cards in One Place
So the cards that I collected as a kid (which were all NBA) that are top loader worthy are kept separate from everything else. Perhaps because I have more nostalgia for these I keep them separate. Not sure, to be honest.
By Year and by Rookies vs Inserts/Parallels vs Base
Now within each sport, I organize them by year. I like being able to see everyone from a rookie class and see who I think is doing well, and who loses their top loader and/or sleeve and goes in the common box! Also separate from the rookies will be the inserts/parallels and the base. So still grouped by year, but separated out. I know a lot of people like to then organize alphabetically, but I’ve found that to be too time consuming!
Bowman Prospect Cards Separate
One exception to the “separate by sport” is that I have an entirely different box dedicated to my Bowman cards. Prospects that pop hold their value well, and you get a TON of them in boxes! I realized after I had opened about 10 boxes and had sleeved hundreds of cards that I would need a separate place just for these. Sometimes the window is small for these to be sold for top value, so I want them separated.
Slabs in a Box
I don’t have any fancy displays for by slabbed cards (yet), so I have a box that they stay in. I look at these the most often for my enjoyment, and the box works great.
10. Catalog Your Cards Manually & Digitally
When I say manually, I mean that you need some sort of physical separator in your box that you can write on for quick reference.
For me, I use cheap sticky notes. They stay very well on both sleeves and top loaders (obviously I don’t stick them to the raw cards), and come easily…plus you can write on them!
I’ve seen others use 3×5 note cards or even get some custom made!
When it comes to a digital catalog, I’m certainly not saying that you should catalog every card in your collection! For me, I catalog the cards that I’m probably going to sell at some point. This includes cards in my PC that I won’t sell in the near future unless values skyrocketed.
Digital Catalog Ideas
- Use an app, like Card Ladder or Card Base – Those are the only two I’ve used, and I’m not in love with either. I use Card Ladder because it’s a little easier, but tons of cards still aren’t in their catalog. Top rookies are usually all you can find in there, and often only if they’re graded.
- Google Sheets – I keep a Google Sheet with several tabs to track different things. I have my main one where I put the card description, date purchased, cost, estimated current value, and then profit and ROI once I sell them. I have separate tabs to track my expenses on supplies, and then also I track my ROI on boxes/packs that I open.
I put together a sports card collection tracker in Google Sheets that you can use as well! - Ebay – Okay this one’s weird…but I actually really like it! Any cards I have that are fairly valuable ($100+) that I think I’m going to sell at some point, I just throw it up on eBay at the price I want to sell it at! Often the price is too high for the current market, but that’s okay. I have the name, title, pics, and I can sort and search through them! Also, if a card spikes, I’m already up there with a listing ready to go. I don’t have to worry so much about the news.
I use all three of these strategies, It’s a little messy, but it works for me!
11. Rinse & Repeat With All Cards!
This is important…here me out! If you’re buying wax, or a ton of singles, it’s SO easy to fall behind on organizing your baseball cards! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had several hundred cards just sitting on my desk (some of them more valuable than I care to admit having left out without even a sleeve).
Then I end up spending three hours on a Saturday organizing it all and well, it’s tedious.
I try my best to have my sleeves, top loaders, and card savers ready to go when I open boxes. It’s better protection, and now they’re ready to get filed away quicker.
Organizing my cards like this lets me enjoy them more easily and also sell them easier! I can find cards fast and I can easily go through my rookies to see if any of them have popped off!
(You can read my entire article about selling cards for the most money here)
That’s about it…hope this helps you organize your baseball card collection!