Sunday, May 26, 2013

Tips On Collecting: Hockey Card Sorting

Bloggers Note: This is the fourth of a series of 4 Tips On Collecting Sorting edition. Now remember, this is how I sort my cards. These tips are to give you some ideas on what you may want to do with your own collection and not what you have to do. Since I don't sell any cards and keep what I get, there is a lot to sort and this is how I break it all down.

It all starts with a pack or two of hockey cards. After opening them up, you may ask, what do I do with them now? Some of you may toss the base cards in the trash or off to the side. Then you may take out your PC stuff and then the rest is for sale. As for how I would sort these, this isn't how I would do it.

Now, my form of sorting is a little time consuming. But I am very well organized. Here is how I would sort the hockey cards:

After opening up hockey cards, I know there is a long road to sorting. But not as long as the other two sports I collect more of. hockey is an occasional sport for me. It all depends on the rookie class whether I buy in or not. Or the product. First I search for rookies and rookie inserts and those make up Pile One. I then take out the remaining inserts or hits for Piles 2 and 3  is if there is a jersey or auto hits. Pile 4 will consist of Wayne Gretzkys. And that leaves pile 5, which are base cards. There is even a Pile 6 but that will come later on.

Now with Pile 1, I actually use a binder marked Hockey Rookies right on the cover. I put them all together in the same album inserts and all. (my future project is to get all of them organized by team)

Pile 2,All of the inserts, unless Wayne Gretzky, get placed into a binder. If they are valued at $20 or above, they get placed into penny sleeves, then top loaders, then into a tote marked inserts.

Pile 3, jersey or thick cards are placed into a 50-100 count plastic box. If I happen to have a 25 count box, perfect size for jersey cards without damaging them, I use that so they are all in their own cases. The autographs I place into penny sleeves then into top loaders and into a separate tote.

Pile 4 are just Wayne Gretzky's. I don't have many but he gets put into a very small binder. At some point I hope to expand my hockey stars folder and do what I do with the other sports. I used to be a huge hockey card collector then backed off a little. Recently I have added a few more hockey cards to my collection so maybe as time goes on I will get them sorted more and pull stars out like Sidney Crosby, Taylor Hall, Alex Ovechkin and others. Thats another future project. I would like to expand in this area.

Pile 5 can be the most time consuming of all. I take all of the base cards, sort them by number. I then place them into 800 count white boxes. I label them by brand and year. The outside of the box I put a number depending on what box I am on but for an example 7. I then take the number 7, write it into a book. And write the contents inside for easy searching. Depending on how many I have of each product, every box holds between 6-7 different brands.

And finally this leaves us with Pile 6, which is the duplications. The inserts I use for giveaways on here among other cards :) The double base cards and star players I use to build the Yard Sale boxes I spoke of on here a couple of times.

Now this seems like a lot of work and yes it is. So don't ever fall too far behind on sorting. But I find this sorting really efficient and easy to find stuff you need or are looking for.

Let me know your thoughts on this crazy sorting. And how you sort your hockey cards.

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