Sorting Post. Take 1.

The last time I wrote about sorting out cards in my collection was roughly five years ago.  At the time I made the post, I was transitioning my collection from being sorted out by teams, into being sorted out by sets.  It was a pretty huge change for me, and has taken a lot of time and energy to accomplish.

This is what my card closet looked like a few years back.

The transition pictures are a little rough, which are in an upcoming post.  

Lots of boxes. 

The boxes got sorted out. They are now in stacks by year, which are back into my card closet, which are in an upcoming post.  These are all the sets I put together from 2000.  Imagine them on a shelf, only some are not really on a shelf.  They are other places too. 

Reorganizing my cards into sets seemed like a great idea, but I really underestimated the number of single cards that would be generated from resorting the cards into sets.  

For awhile there was a doubles table.  This is the doubles table at a bad moment in time.  

It looked nicer at different points.  

Completely overwhelming to deal with these sorts of things.  Not to mention that there were thousands and thousands of other cards that did not belong with a set.  

So, as part of my goals for my blog this year I wanted to write a little bit about sorting this year.  Taking a collection of 300,000 cards and resorting them into sets, with a hefty number of single cards, has changed how I collect cards.  Feels like something worth writing about.  

I am hoping to make a sorting post or two every month.  A little background post to start out.  

Small Sets

I count small sets as Minor League sets, completed insert sets, those little Denny's sets, the Topps mail-in sets, and many others.  Most of the sets are put together and finished, they just needed a home.  Others were split up for whatever reason and put back together.  

For example, 

I broke up my 1989-1990 Mayaquez Indios baseball card set.  In sorting out all the single cards, I have slowly put the Indios set back together.  I am still missing a Tom Pagnozzi card.  Where did it go?  All of my little sets are now housed in a 5,000 count box.  I need a second one, which means a trip to the card shop.  The little sets will have their own sorting post at some point.

Commons 

What do you do with thousands and thousands of commons?

I have given a few thousand away to students in my classes over the last five to six years.  I have used them to cover my classroom door.  I have donated them to different charitable endeavors, and yet some remain.  I guess they are still good to have around.  I just have not thought of the reason why yet.  

If nothing else, they are fun to flip through.  

Inserts

When I first started sorting out my sets, I was putting the insert cards in with the sets.  Then I started pulling out the completed insert sets, placing them in the small sets box, which left a bunch of random individual cards at the back of all of my set boxes.  It did not seem right, so they now have their own area.  

My inserts cards are now being sorted out the same as my autographed cards.  They are alphabetized by player, sorted by year within the player, and then by set within the year.  

Separate boxes for the two different types of cards though.  

Relic Cards

What are people even doing with these anymore?  I have thousands of these cards.  What are other people doing with these?  I will have another sorting post next week.  Kind of excited about these posts.