Boxes for Baseball Cards

Baseball Card Boxes are commonly available with 1 to 5 rows, each holding anywhere from 500 to 800 cards. Baseball Cards are typically laid on their longer edged sides in the baseball card boxes rows, though there are some options available where the cards sit upright instead.

You may be wondering why you should spend your hard earned money on special basball card boxes rather than just save a couple of bucks and reuse an ordinary old box you've got lying around the house already. If the storage box you use isn't sized appropriately to keep the baseball cards from moving around they're bound to get damaged at some point. Shoe boxes are a popular choice among the uninformed but they are thin and flimsy and they'll eventually bend or break at some point while being handled causing the cards to move around and get damaged. Specialized boxes are well worth the money, and they’re super cheap.

Typically boxes will store anywhere from 500 to 800 cards in each row. This is a good storage option if you have thousands of cards and it’s become impractical to store them all in binders or individual plastic baseball card holders. Storing large quantities of cards in baseball card boxes gives you a great safe place to keep those common low-value cards that we tend to accumulate when collecting cards over the years.

It’s most common for baseball card boxes to be made out of cardboard, which is completely fine for most scenarios. Plastic boxes are also available though they are usually more expensive and a lot more difficult to find, they're typically not worth the extra cost though. The cardboard boxes are pretty tough if you get good ones and as long as you aren’t stacking them floor to ceiling they’ll keep your cards nice and safe.

You can find baseball card storage boxes at most of the same places you can buy other types of baseball card holders.. Local card shops, card shows, WalMart, Target, Amazon or eBay are all places to look.

I usually prefer to order online and typically will default to Amazon over eBay, though both are good options most of the time.

Baseball Card Sleeves

Baseball Card Sleeves are also commonly known as Penny Sleeves. These soft plastic card holders can help prevent your cards from minor damage when they are being handled.

Also Useful for Collectible Card Games...

Collectible Card Game cards such as Magic The Gathering or Pokemon can also benefit from baseball card sleeves. Collectible card game cards such as these can actually have the potential for surprisingly high monetary values in the collectors market.

It’s not uncommon to see some Pokémon cards selling for over $100 on eBay these days, and there are several Magic the Gathering cards that sell well into the hundreds and even a few that will go for over $1000.

It makes sense to keep these cards well protected and to use baseball card sleeves considering such high potential for value exists. The nice thing about penny sleeves in this case is that you can keep the sleeves on while playing the games with the cards. It’s not too difficult to shuffle your deck with the sleeves on and whether you’re playing on a carpeted floor or a table-top you’ll be a lot less likely to nick up those corners if you keep sleeves on the cards.

Bringing it back to Baseball

Baseball cards and other sports cards themselves aren’t handled nearly as much of as collectible card game cards of course, but they do get handled, after all what fun would collecting baseball cards be if we didn’t take them out to look at them once in a while We all know the urge to browse through a stack of cards can be almost irresistible sometimes.

Where to Buy Baseball Card Sleeves

Penny Sleeves can be found at many places including eBay, Amazon, internet specialty shops, local card shops, and local big chain stores. I've scoured the net and compiled my list of the cheapest options below. You might be able to find some cheaper knock-off's from some shady company online if you try, but I've made a point to stick to highly reputable companies that have been respected in the market for years.

Here is a quick tip from my own experience. Regardless of which kind of cards you are planning to use them on, stick with sleeves marketed for baseball cards rather than collectible card games. Card sleeves geared towards collectible card games tend to have much higher price tags.

My favorite places to buy baseball card sleeves online are Amazon and eBay. Amazon has a big advantage when it comes to shipping costs and speeds compared to most eBay sellers, especially for Amazon Prime members. For smaller lot sizes you'll often find that eBay sellers are offering better prices than Amazon but that when you factor in shipping costs Amazon's price turns out to be better, and sometimes by a long shot.

Amazon is almost always the better deal for any quantity under 1000 when it comes to price, speed of shipping, convenience, and the all important trust factor that comes from dealing with Amazon versus a random eBay seller. If you're buying a huge lot of baseball card sleeves then it might make sense to deal with the random seller on eBay instead, you could end up saving up to 30% per sleeve by doing so.

Coupon Organization with Baseball Card Protector Sheets

Baseball card holder sheets are incredibly popular amongst people looking for an easy and affordable way to organize their coupons, and for good reason. These sheets work great for organizing coupons because they fit in any binder, are durable, and when compared with just about any custom coupon organizer they're cost effective.

These Baseball card holders for binders can be used for a number of coupon related organization jobs, such as:

• Printable internet coupons (just fold them so the picture is showing when inserted into the plastic sleeves
• Gift Cards
• Receipts
• Restaurant Coupons / Club cards
• Business Cards

Ultra Pro 9 Pocket Page Protectors

Coupon organizers and Baseball collectors both give these nine pocket sheets awesome reviews. These sheets are very easy to insert and remove coupons from, are very durable, and will stand the test of time.

You definitely want to stick with high quality sheets since you’ll be handling them and putting coupons in and taking them out much more frequently than a baseball collector would be. If you purchase these in sets of 100 you'll save a lot over buying the 25 packs one at a time. You’d be surprised how quickly you’ll use up these slots too; a set of 100 should keep you going for a while at least.

Where Should You Get Your Binder?

For your binder you’re probably better off buying it locally at Walmart or Target, unless you’re searching for something special you probably won’t be able to beat those kinds of prices online unless you’re buying in bulk which wouldn’t make much sense for this case.

You may also want to pick up some tabbed dividers for your binder so you can separate your coupons by categories for extra organization. If you're even a little crafty you could even consider making the tabbed dividers yourself to save a few extra bucks.

Good luck in your quest to lower your expenses, I know the sheets above will help give you the perfect start in organizing your coupons.

How to Take Care of Baseball Cards

Taking great care of your baseball cards can maximize the value of your collection. Baseball cards lose a lot of value when they aren't properly handled and stored, even minor damage can drastically reduce values.

Use Appropriate Baseball Card Holders

I won’t go into too much detail about this piece of the equation in this article since it’s covered rather extensively elsewhere on the site but no discussion about the property care of baseball cards would be complete without at least mentioning it. Using high quality baseball card holders and in your binders, baseball card protector sheets, will help keep your cards in mint condition.

Teach Kids When They Begin Collecting How to Care for their Cards.

Collecting baseball cards with your kids can be a wonderful experience, helping them learn how to care for their cards in a fun way only makes it better. If you teach them to be careful with all cards, not just the valuable ones, they’ll do better overall. Those no-value common cards are great cards for kids to take a look at and handle without a case but still teach them to handle them with care and that’ll come second nature to them when they end up eventually handling more valuable cards in the future.

Be Very Careful Inserting and Removing Cards from Top Loaders and other Holders

Don’t try to put a card in the wrong size sleeve, top loader, or screw-down holder. Cards come in various thicknesses so use holders or sheets made for that thickness card. Visit this site for an overview on baseball card sizes. Resist the urge to insert and remove your cards from their holders frequently and you'll lower the risk of damaging the cards quite a bit. We all love to take a closer look at our cards from time to time but keeping them in their cases as much as possible helps tremendously. Use hard plastic baseball card holders for cards that young kids might want to handle. If you’re starting a collection with your son or daughter for example it wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun for them to never be able to pick the cards up, so putting them in a more protective case can remove almost all of the risk in letting them handle the cards.

Tips About The Storage Environment

Store cards in a dry environment with low humidity and a lack of extreme temperatures. Extreme temperatures aren’t good for your cards. Aside from temperature and humidity a ‘suitable environment’ also takes security into account. If you have very valuable cards in your collection take extra care to keep them in a secure location, preferably one that is fire proof. For extremely valuable cards the same care that would be taken for any priceless collectors item be it a piece of art or what have you. A bank or other secure location might be the best option for those cases.


To learn more tips for taking care of baseball cards to maximize their value click here.

All About Baseball Card Holders

One of the most important parts of any great baseball card collection is the often overlooked Baseball card holders. We’ll never get nearly as excited about high quality hard plastic card holders as we will when we come across a high quality Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, or Willie Mays card of course, but without those card holders there wouldn’t be nearly as many great old cards out there in the first place. Protecting your cards with the right holders is a given to experienced collectors but can often be overlooked by new collectors, especially kids.

Baseball Card Holder Types

• Soft Top Loaders
• Hard Plastic Top Loaders
• 9 Slot Pages for Binders
• Magnetic One-Touch
• One screw holders
• Four screw holders (non-recessed)
• Stands
• Wall mount holders

Cards also come in different thicknesses, each of the types of holders above comes in a range of these sizes. One of the more common trends over the last several years is for special cards to be quite a bit thicker than regular cards, these thicker cards require card holders made specifically for them. Let’s go over the different types of card holders in more detail.

Soft Sleeves

Also known as Penny Sleeves (in bulk you can actually get 3 or more for a penny) or Soft Top Loaders these inexpensive options are good for protecting against minor nicks and wear but won't stop any substantial damage to the cards, such as bending or creasing. Penny Sleeves, as the name implies, are by far the cheapest option available on the market, they should however be restricted to your least valuable cards for the most part or used in combination with other more protective card holders when it comes to more expensive / valuable cards. These are easy to find in the 20 point (Regular Card) thickness and the Thick (55 Point) and Extra Thick (75 Point) thicknesses
.

Semi-Rigid Top Loaders

These holders are harder than Penny Sleeves but not as hard as Rigid Top Loaders. They can be bent but it takes a lot more to do so than with something like Penny Sleeves which offer little to no protection at all against bending. These can be relatively cheap compared to the Rigid Top loaders so they make a good option when you want something a little more protective than the Penny Sleeves. Aside from the cost savings these also won't take up quite as much space as the Rigid Top Loaders will.

Rigid Top Loaders

The next step up in the baseball card holder hierarchy is the Rigid Top Loader, these come in all of the common thickness sizes and offer great protection with easy storage and still have a relatively low overall
cost.

Top Screw Holders

These holders consist of two very hard and thick pieces of plastic that are screwed together by a single screw (usually near the center-top), they usually have a little recessed cavity that the card nestles into. Usually each half has a little recessed part that nestles the card. These are also available in a wide variety of thicknesses.

Four Screw Down Holders

Similar to the One Screws but with the obvious difference of having Four Screws, one at each corner. The other major difference is that these typically do not have recessed cavity's, making them ideal for pre-1960 era vintage cards which can come in a variety of sizes. Top Loaders and even some four-down screw holders can be used with a penny sleeve to offer a little extra protection.

Magnetic One-Touch

These have two separate plastic pieces but instead of using screws to fasten the pieces together these holders rely on a magnet. These tend to be more expensive but while still offering great protection they also provide much easier access to the cards themselves. Of course, depending on your situation (young children in the house perhaps) that might not be ideal for you.

Multi-card Holders

I'll cover the various card holders for multiple cards in more detail in another article in the future, but I did want to at least mention their existence. If you like keeping parts of your collection in binders then you'll want to invest in some good 9-Card holder sheets. They won’t offer as much protection as a hard plastic case but they do offer a nice way to store your cards in a more accessible and enjoyable way.

To learn more...

To learn more drop on by www.BaseballCardHolders.net to find more articles on baseball card collecting and tips on where to find the cheapest baseball card holders on the net.