Organization Overhaul: How to Keep Track of 5000 Griffeys

The organizational skill you need to pursue this hobby and not go insane is considerable.  When I have cardboard time to spare I spend about 85% of it organizing, 5% scanning, and 10% writing posts.  I’ve recently been undergoing a major organizational overhaul; hence I’ve been lax in my blogging and trading duties.  For that I am sorry.

But I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made in the organizational arena and how much better my collection as a whole looks in general, so I’ve decided to share my ideas on the subject.  For those of you who are interested in such things, I give you:

The Junior Junkie Card Organization Manifesto

"Peace resides in the simple." - Ancient Chinese proverb

"Wax on, wax off." - Mr. Miyagi

"If you become a hoarder, I'm divorcing you." - My wife

These are the principles that guided me in my creation of a more efficient system for amassing choice cardboard.

When this process began my collection was a virtual sharknado of piles and binders, boxes and unlabeled dividers.  You might think that just being a Griffey collector with a handful of PCs is stress-free and easy.  My early-onset male pattern baldness says otherwise.

Generally speaking, my collection can be divided into two parts: Griffeys and Other.  Each part has its own rules to obey and trends to follow - otherwise there would be chaos.

Let’s talk about the Griffeys first.

Binders work well for Griffeys as that part of my collection is not in flux - it only grows.  I can simply add new pages to binders as needed when I get new cards.  When I originally got it in my head to organize my Griffeys I bought three 100-count boxes of 9-pocket Ultra Pro Platinum pages and five 4” binders.  My plan was to group them by date and put them into binders by year and quantity owned.  This worked great until I started blogging and my collection tripled in size.  Suddenly I had stacks and stacks of unfiled Griffeys, and specific cards were a lot harder to locate.  I was overwhelmed.  A new system was needed.

First I emptied the existing Griffey binders, combined them with all the unsorted stacks I've acquired and split them up by year.  To hold them in the interrim I bought one of those giant, five-row card storage boxes and put all the Griffeys into it.

I took a ton of pictures because I was excited to have all my Griffeys in one place:

When I took those pictures I had forgotten about an entire long box completely full of even more unsorted Griffeys, so in that picture was only about 85% of my totaly Griffey hoard.  This box is supposed to hold 5000 cards.  Accounting for especially thick cards and penny sleeves, these pictures probably have closer to 4000 Griffeys in them.

In that box they stayed as I contemplated what to do next.

After a lot of thought, some money spent, and a weekend in front of the TV sorting and labeling, the new system is finally complete.  I kept the collection divided up by year, but also divided them up by brand and sub-brand to more easily facilitate both posts about individual sets and design timelines.  This way required that I have a lot of binder pages because there are going to be some empty pockets and the occasional half-filled page; so I bit the bullet and invested in four more boxes of Ultra Pro Platinum pages and dedicated two more binders to the cause.  

I have finally completed this mammoth, weekend-long task:

Having just finished



Labeled and on the shelf



That’s 6300 pockets filled at over 80% capacity.  Thus we have surpassed the 5000-card mark.  Here's hoping this costly new system works out.

UPDATE: I am writing this having subscribed to the new Griffey binder system for almost two weeks now, and I couldn't be happier.  I have learned that at my collection's current rate of growth, I'll most likely have to add another binder some time this year.  I'll write "Jr." on that one.  For now though, all is well on the Griffey front.

The organization of the Others has proven to be more of a challenge.  

First of all, the idea of having every card I own in binders is out the window - it’s costly and far too impractical as that part of my collection is in constant flux.  I’m always acquiring old cards of dudes I like and new cards of new dudes who are just starting out and even non-baseball dudes.  I’m also constantly trading away cards to other bloggers or having to flip through heavy binders looking for a specific player which is a hassle with so many cards to deal with.  To sum it up, maintaining binders is out of the question.

I decided to ditch the binders and use the interrim Griffey storage box as my new permanent “Other” storage solution.  The bulk of this box will be all my keepers arranged alphabetically by player name.  I've attached filing tabs to top loaders to divide up letters, and wider tabs on smaller top loaders to mark players for whom I have a large quantity.  I’m toying with the idea of putting them all into penny sleeves.  We’ll see.

Here's how it turned out:



The Other Box



The great thing about the box system is that I can also put small card sets in there, themed and player collections can have their own slots, and the system can be changed around with ease.  The idea was to have my entire “Other” collection in there and in order in a single day.

When all is said and done, all that should remain in my collection will be the Griffey binders and the box of others.  Of course I’ll also have a few complete sets as well as some oversize Griffey items, but the loosely-sorted stacks on shelves and numerous long boxes containing God-knows-what will be a thing of the past.  Fingers crossed...

UPDATE: This part has proven to be a bigger job than I previously thought.  The Other box has filled up quickly, and I have deduced that it will not be my only storage solution when all is said and done.  My final goal remains a storage system that is simple, and I'm confident I'll get there.  There's just no way one box will get me there.  I'll have to make use of additional boxes to store small sets and large player collections.

I've also started pulling cards from the box that are too good to not be in a binder.  I'm thinking these will end up in a binder of their own just as soon as I can think of a cute name for said binder.  

I snapped a few pictures of the physical state of my collection for your perusal.





The Griffey Binders

  

The Other Box where the non-Griffeys I want to keep go.




The Shelf, where I keep PC's, sets in progress, some oversized and display items and boxes I need to access frequently.





The Closet, where I keep complete sets and boxes I don't need to access a lot.



The box of small sets



The scourge of my collection: thousands of cards I don't want sorted by team



Not shown:

- a printer paper carton completely filled to the point of being unliftable with even more unsorted cardboard I don't want, at least enough for two more of those boxes shown above

- two additional binders of non-baseball cards and uncollectables

- another plastic box full of trades set aside for specific bloggers

The perfect way to end this post is with a plea for somebody to take some of these cards off my hands.  You can see that I don't keep very much of what I get in terms of mystery boxes and repacks and such, so you know there's some good stuff in there.  If you have any interest in a box filled to the brim with cards exclusively from your favorite team and you have something to trade, message me.  I'm in.

It's Time to Get Serious: Getting Rid of Surplus Cardboard

Welcome to my mass trading strategy

 
I have too many cards.  I've filled up four 3200-count cardboard boxes and have enough overflow to justify filling another one.  I was doing well for a while there, but now it's time to buckle down and mail away some cardboard.  You want some?

I have divided these thousands of cards up by team.  I now have massive stacks of every team in baseball that I am highly motivated to get rid of. 
 
I started with four boxes full of cards and a bunch of overflow:

Last week I spent my evenings watching Netflix and dividing up these cards by team a few thousand at a time:

I then bricked out the team stacks into a size that allows for four bricks to fit in a $6.00 flat rate Priority Mail box.  Here's some of what I've done so far:

Each brick is a random mix of cards from the 80's through today including stars, rookies, inserts, and parallels.

The next step is to find people who want the cards....

I'm easy and not looking to profit.  I want these cards to have good homes, and I'd prefer it to be worthwhile paying to ship them all.

What I need are Griffeys.  There are a few other themes I pursue in my collection, but the focus is Ken Griffey, Jr.  If you have some and like a certain team, shoot me an e-mail.  I'll drop a cardboard bomb on you.  Just tell me a team and a number.

Quantity is up to you and what your Griffeys are worth to you.  A standard package is 4 bricks of your team.  If you plan on sending an obscene number of Griffeys and I can accommodate filling a larger box, we can make that happen.  Maybe you only have a couple and feel guilty asking for a whole box?  I can send you two in a bubble mailer instead.  I don't plan on negotiating - you make the call.


Don't be shy.  I plan on sending these out every Saturday until they are gone and only Griffeys remain.  If there are other bloggers you know who collect specific teams, send them on over.  I will answer everyone, primarily in the evenings.

My e-mail is TJV504 at gmail dot com.  Let's get silly.

What Cardboard has Taught Me or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

I started collecting baseball cards again recently.  Things have changed since the mid-90's.  Here's a few things I've learned in the past few months of collecting:





In reality, we taste like chicken.

Apparently there are days when you can just go down to the ballpark and get a bunch of autographs.  New Orleans has never been a baseball town.  I'm amazed we still have the Zephyrs (our AAA team).  Anyway, that sounds amazing.  If Ken Griffey (Jr or Sr) make it to one of those, please, think of your old pal, T.J.!

Those orange-toothed beasts on the left are Boudreaux and Clotille.  They are nutria, and the mascots of the Miami Marlins AAA affiliate New Orleans Zephyrs.  You may recognize their names if you've ever heard a good coonass joke.  That picture was taken at Zephyr Field which is about a mile from my house and right next door to the Saints Training Camp, the Budweiser Distribution Center, and the only Dairy Queen in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area.












Hey, kids!  Do you like being gouged?

 Toys R' Us may sell baseball cards, but you definitely don't want to go there to buy them.  I went hoping to get a blaster with some sweet purple parallels for 2013 Topps.  The blaster was priced at $27.99, $8 more than anywhere else I've seen them for sale.  The shelf was a mess with no organization or logic to it.  And very few price tags.  At that markup, I expect a better shopping experience.

I decided to bite the bullet and get the box anyway (I also had an unpriced repack box in my hands that rang up for $24.99.  13 packs for $25.  Yeah, no......).  I got the blaster to the car and started ripping.  No purples.  Not one.  Never again!



This is the card that keeps me ripping.

Buying 2013 Topps in general is a stupid move on my part.  I collect retired players pretty exclusively.  I should be buying repack boxes.  And yet, I'm 14 cards away from completing Series 1, so how can I stop now?  (FYI, I have reams of duplicate base cards.) 

Plus there's the slim possibility of pulling a Griffey autograph.  So far I've pulled two Griffey die-cuts and two random autographs of players who aren't named Griffey.  And yet, The Chase has me.  I remain stubbornly optimistic.

So yes, I'll keep buying them a little longer, but then it's packs from the past and nothing else.  Or at least it should be.............Nah, it wont.  Bring on the 2013 product!



 


 
Wives hate baseball card blogs.  I've had to get really creative in balancing time to put these posts together and spending quality time with loved ones. 

All your favorite players are retired!  Stop buying packs!

For example, we've been plowing through Doctor Who on Netflix for the past few weeks, so one thing I like to do is scan in all the cards at once onto an SD card, then bring the SD card over to the laptop in the living room for editing and posting.  She doesn't seem to mind me plucking away at the computer while we watch, and the way I figure, if we are both in the same room, we are spending time together.  Love of my life successfully fooled!  Score one for baseball cards!

Not really.  Real human interaction trumps cardboard every time.  And for the record, she's very patient and understanding about the blog.  However, when we have a kid it's gonna be game over for the Junior Junkie.  Better do as much posting as I can now.

I'm worth a lot more than what I cost.

The concept of value in this hobby is relative almost to the point of meaninglessness.  Now, as much as I make fun of Beckett, it is a good resource for market price which is essentially the opportunity cost of keeping the card for yourself.  Still, I find that even somewhat valuable cards are worth more to me in a PWE to a fellow blogger than in an eBay auction that'll net me five bucks.  Above that, well, we'll see.  I haven't been that lucky. 

What I'm saying is that the Tim Wallach guy is doing it right.  If you love a player that very few others love, you will probably end up with an amazing collection of that player and an overall more rewarding experience.  A patch card may be worth 20 bucks to you, but if you're the only one who wants it, you'll probably get it for less than 5.  I recently got an awesome Chuck Finley relic card for $2.55.  Why?  No one collects him but me.

My problem is that I also collect Ken Griffey, Jr., one of the most popular players in baseball's modern history.  It is pretty frustrating, I assure you.  That's why this next point is so important:

The results of my card organization therapy.

There's nothing more relaxing than organizing your cards.  I love putting fresh stacks of 2013 Topps where they belong in a set, or dividing up stacks of repack box fodder by team and picking out the ones I think my fellow bloggers might want.  A guaranteed daily influx of cards would be ideal.  Any cards, even ones I don't plan on keeping.  The incessant organizing: that's my addiction.

I also know that I'm a little behind in my quota for posting Griffey cards.  Time management has never been one of my strengths.  This is something I will be working to remedy.

Good night, baseball card people!