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...
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