Having an organizational system for your cards is essential—lest you end up with hundreds or thousands of cards stacked up on your desk. Not only do you want to keep your cards safe, you want to be able to sort through them quickly—both for your enjoyment as well as for sales/trades.
The best way to store sports cards is to first sort them into categories based on value, and then store them naked, with penny sleeves, or penny sleeves and top loaders. If you can afford it, it’s also a great idea to get your best/favorite cards graded for long-term protection.
There’s so much more to this…let’s dive in.
How Do You Store Sports Cards?
I sort my cards into 6 main categories, and two sub-categories! I know, it sounds like a lot, but let me explain and you’ll see how it makes sense.
How to Store Common Cards
These are the cards that you’re not interested in keeping. They don’t hold value now, and you don’t think they’ll hold value in the future.
I keep these in a 3,200 count box. Some people have dozens of 3,000 count boxes full of commons…but not me. I limit myself to just one.
I always include a couple of commons for protection when I ship out cards. When I get too many commons, I’ll give some to my kids to play with, or donate them. Here are a few other ideas of what you can do with common cards.
How to Store Low-End Keepers (Sleeved and Non-Sleeved)
When I open boxes, I immediately sort into three piles:
- Commons
- Keepers (inserts, rookies, parallels, HOF greats)
- To Be Graded (I’ll get to this later)
Most of my keepers are cards that aren’t worth a ton (usually no more than a couple bucks), but they are cards that I want to keep because:
- Rookies That Might Pop – More valuable rookies go into top loaders, but all the rest of them get sleeved and put into a 3,200 count box. After a few years, the rookies that have clearly flamed out get relegated to the commons box.
- Cards I Think Are Cool – These are the more interesting cards, such as inserts or parallels that showcase star players.
- Base HOF Players – Even base cards hold some value if it’s a true all-time player. Most of these I keep non-sleeved, but the GOATs will get a sleeve (LeBron, Brady, Trout, etc.). These are really long-term holds.
I organize my low-end keepers by sport and then by rookies vs the rest.
For example, I have “2021 NBA Rookies” and then “2021 NBA Inserts” (I put my parallels and base in there too). I’ll keep the rookies separated by year, but then the rest not. In this box go sleeved and unsleeved cards.
How to Store $3+ Keepers
Next, I have my cards that are worth a top loader! I keep them in a BCW Super Shoe Storage Box which are specifically made to be wide enough for top loaders.
These are the types of cards I put in top loaders:
- Higher Value Rookies – These are going to be more valuable rookies, or rarer parallels of rookies (even if they aren’t hyped players).
- Higher Value Inserts
- Autos & Memorabilia
- Numbered Parallels – Almost all of the numbered cards I pull get put in top loaders, no matter how little value they carry. This is just a quirk of my collecting—I love numbered cards.
How to Store High-End Keepers
These are my higher valued cards that are not slabbed. It’s only a small fraction of my collection, but I like to keep these in magnetic card holders.
Some examples are my 2020-21 LeBron Silver Prizm (the Kobe tribute dunk) and my Anthony Edwards Optic Silver rookie. They’re not graded because they wouldn’t get better than an 8.
How to Store Slabbed Cards
This is the last of my main categories of cards! These are my graded cards. I put each one in a graded card sleeve to protect the slab from getting scratched. Then I have a little box (one that another product came in, but it’s the perfect size to hold three side-by-side stacks of slabs) that I store them in.
To Be Graded
When I’m opening my boxes, anything that I might want to get graded gets penny sleeved and then put into a Card Saver.
When I have time, I’ll go back and examine these cards under a bright light and a magnifying glass. If it passes my examination, then it gets put into a different box. Once I have a number of cards in this box, I send them off to get graded by SGC or PSA.
To Be Sold
Soon after opening boxes, I’ll also make a pile of cards I want to sell. These are cards that I’m not bullish on their long-term potential. These could be $2 cards or $200 cards.
But I like to keep these separate so that I can take pictures of them, and then I put them in a dedicated box by my computer. This way when one sells, I don’t have to sort through my larger collection to find the card!
How Do You Store Sports Cards For the Long-Term?
When I first came back into collecting, I spent months poring through my old collection. I sorted them into the categories I mentioned above. However, I did do one thing different:
Cards that still weren’t worth much that I wanted to hold onto for 20 years got put back into the giant plastic bins they were in! These are base cards of all-time greats, or even inserts of all-star players.
On a day-to-day basis, I prefer to keep my modern collection close at hand. This is because the values are likely to fluctuate more often because the players are still playing.
But my Gary Payton cards? Or my 1992 Charles Barkley cards? Might as well hold onto them for 20 more years and see if they have value.
I store these in giant plastic storage bins because they protect from bugs and humidity, and they stack well.