In the past year I've bought a house and gotten married. I'm knocking on 30's door and can't say I'm a young-adult any longer. I'm a grown-ass man with a large collection of cardboard that's probably worth $30K+, and said collection is currently sitting in a couple boxes on the floor of the closet of our spare bedroom. This arrangement is cumbersome, impractical, just plain ugly, and also seems pretty juvenile. I'm thinking I need a piece of furniture to house my collection; some sort of cabinet, dresser, card catalog or chest of drawers. It seems like a good idea because housing the collection will help to keep it organized and keep the cards themselves protected in the event of a fire, leaky roof, or burglary. And, yes, I'd like the room to look better too.
Does anyone have any cool, unique, or just plain practical setups for housing their collections that they're willing to share and maybe post pictures of? I'm very interested to see how other adults in this most-adult format deal with the spacial problems that come with owning tens of thousands of Magic cards.
I keep my collection in boxes on shelves in the closet. It works for me.
Perhaps you could find an old card catalog cabinet from a library and use that. Or maybe commission a nice cabinet to be made for you.
♀
https://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Originally Posted by jrw1985
Works for me.
I didn't see anything on that site for card storage...
I'm pretty fine with the "Sell Cards -> List Mixed Cards" section.
A bunch of those for the high value cards and some fat packs case for the rest should work.
"You either die a Onesto-Player, or live long enough to see yourself become a Dredger"
I keep my shit in a pretty standard safe I bought for $99 at Wal-Mart. (Bear in mind that I live in the part of California that catches fire a lot - I was motivated by the fireproof part more than the lock - and some of them have reasonable waterproofing, if you live in the northeast and need that sort of thing.) I got the one whose internal capacity would hold maybe two xbox 360s, and I keep one Monster binder plus a few fat pack boxes in it pretty easily, but there are a couple that are maybe the size of a normal dorm mini-fridge that maybe would suit you better and cost more like $150.
Are you just looking to store them or are you proud enough that you'd want them displayed?
Are they decks or singles?
Is it bulk cardboard or staples?
I'm 32 and 4 years married, so I had a head start on you and am almost finished...
First step is figuring out what you want at the end of this... Do you want a whole room dedicated to your hobby (addiction)? Do you want a spare bedroom with a closet no one can use because it is crammed full of cards? Do you want a piece of furniture that is an eye sore to your wife but holds everything?
I (now) have a backpack full of cards and the top shelf of a bookcase dedicated to my collection.
The next step is figuring out what you will use or be happy you still have 5+ years from now... Do you need all the commons and uncommons you opened in that sweet draft a couple months ago? How about all the other commons and uncommons you leaf through once a year, looking for something sweet and realizing it is still all just bulk? Is your trade binder full of awful rares no one cares about? Playsets of awful rares from past projects that never turned into anything?
Most of what makes a typical person's Magic collection unwieldy is the sheer size of it due to all the shitty cards. So part 2 is identifying what you actually want in your collection and selling the rest (I recommend selling it for store credit or putting the cash you get towards staples/reserved list stuff).
I'm down to 3 EDH, 2 Legacy, a cube I'm working on, and a couple casual decks (that are technically modern).
The last step is actually going through with it and trading/selling off all the stuff you know you should part with. If you are putting the money back into the collection then this is its own reward.
I've found this to be very therapeutic in a way. Getting control over a hobby (addition) and turning it into something managable. It also makes it easier to account for everything, determine realistic value quickly, and find the thing you are looking for.
Good luck!
Someone set this to stone, please.Most of what makes a typical person's Magic collection unwieldy is the sheer size of it due to all the shitty cards. So part 2 is identifying what you actually want in your collection and selling the rest (I recommend selling it for store credit or putting the cash you get towards staples/reserved list stuff).
I've found this to be very therapeutic in a way. Getting control over a hobby (addiction) and turning it into something managable. It also makes it easier to account for everything, determine realistic value quickly, and find the thing you are looking for.
Good luck!
If only MKM wasn't such a pain in the ass, it'll be far more pleasant to get rid of the stuff. What I miss is the possibility to sell heaps of unsorted thrash, e.g. "Sell the cube" or something like that.
I planned to buy a tresor, but then I realized that instead of purchasing unwieldy and expensive furniture to place an unwieldy and expensive collection into it, I may simply sell the cards and purchase a thing that makes my life actually more comfortable, like a sofa to sit upon when I want to drink a bottle of wine with my beautiful wife.
Otoh, if I'd be having a Mox or two, I'd definitely purchase a fire-proof, water-proof safe just in case; a big one to store all the necessary guns, documents and credit/Magic cards so that some nightly visit or bad accident doesn't leave you with a great loss and no way how to manage your life in the upcoming days, be it instanto-cash or papers for the insurance company.
Speaking of that, I got my collection in a sport bag whereupon our cat loves to sit and lick her ass while moulting into de-pimped Canadian Thresh.
Sorted by type, then alphabetically. All the cards in the box are archived on a program and spread sheet that is kept on a cloud server. To go into the box, a card must be on a deck list I play or play test with. My dual/fetch lands are kept in their own folder for ease of location without risk of any possible damage that would come from flicking though them. All cards are double sleeved, I change the outer sleeves once a year only on the most commonly used cards.
For the cards that are worth real money (Workshops, Tabernacle and power) I keep in a safe.
Also, yes, they are in a desk draw.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Aren't you afraid someone will hack it and see all your nude selfies? That's my understanding of how the cloud works...
I love the naturally ripened tomatoes box in the background. I think we should post more (low) quality pictures of how our life looks like.
I have every set in it's own binder (some of the old sets I have by block, but eventually I'll redo those). Keeps everything very organized.
I built 4 sets of bookshelves where the bottom rows are for the Magic binders.
Last edited by H; 11-29-2014 at 08:34 AM. Reason: Autocorrect being stupid...
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
just get a couple of binders and sort the cards into them.
Legacy/modern playables that are worth more than a couple bucks go into an enormous 4" 3-ring binder. I should probably split it by this point, but eh.
All other commons/uncommons/rares are sorted by set/color/alphabet and go into big card storage "pizza boxes" slotted into a wire shelf. I don't care about the look of the wire shelf, it's in a closet, but I'm not married either.
I keep one trade binder with Standard trade stuff and one with EDH plus what little legacy/modern I have spares enough of to trade.
It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.
-David DeLaney
Two deckboxes and a single binder.
I usually sell and buy the stuff I don't need/do need. I don't have unlimited space, as well as a girlfriend who is very resistent to the looks of magic cards.
This is a bad idea.
I used to have an extensive collection but sold it. Now because of the inflation of card prices, I can't even buy an Underground Sea with the money I got selling a playset of them 3-4 years ago.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
Obviously you keep duals. You always keep duals, forces as well as wastes, but the rest is basically stock prices.
Too late. I did keep my FoWs/Wastelands/LEDs though.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
Depends on what you want to do with your life.
Frankly, it's quite impossible to quit completely if you keep even one mere card, and the everchanging metagame prevents anyone from keeping "the last 75" (which in fact are more like "the last roughly 150"), if he only plans to occasionally visit a tourney when there'd be nothing else to do. Sadly, this experience is more true than I ever thought and keeping the one last deck (with some sb stuff and a dozen of cards to mix things up sometimes) simply does not work.
Yeah, that sucks. I guess you bought them cheaper than you sold them, so you still profited. It's really about the reasons why you did that and what do you plan for future.I used to have an extensive collection but sold it. Now because of the inflation of card prices, I can't even buy an Underground Sea with the money I got selling a playset of them 3-4 years ago.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
