ORGGanizing Your Collection (Part 1: The Bulk)

Well hello there boils and ghouls! Welcome to another installment of: DON’T TRAIN MY ORGG!

I've been feeling worse than he looks! :S

First, sorry that I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been having some strange issues with my blood sugar that have made me shift priorities for a while. Things are getting better though, and I’m back to work! :)

Today we’re going to look at part 1 of a 2-part series I’ll be writing about how to organize your cards.

PART 1 will focus on the BULK of your collection (the stuff that stays at home) and PART 2 will focus on your TRADERS (the stuff that you bring to trade).

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There is nothing more annoying than trying to hunting down cards you need and being unable to find them. You KNOW that you have 1,000,000 copies of that elusive Llanowar Elves, but where did you put them? Sure, your rares are all double sleeved and chillin’ in a binder, but what about the bulk of your collection? The draft leftovers, the playables, the cards from older formats, the EDH staples and all of the other stuff that isn’t being used right now. What do you do with those unsung heroes??

*** PART 1: THE BULK ***

Clean up your mess! We all know that you have piles of cards all over the place, strewn here and there. Your mom or significant other is probably all over you to get that $#!+ dealt with (I know mine is)!

Where to start?

Well first things first, grab all of your random piles and take them all to the same place so that you have them at hand. For me that involves picking up cards from the family room, the kitchen, the computer room, the rec room, the laundry room, the spare bedroom, the hallway AND the real bedroom. DON’T MISS ANY!! If you’re not planning on putting them into binders, make sure that you have a lot of boxes available, and some way to separate your stuff within the box. Personally, I prefer binders and 9 card pocket protectors. I just pack each sleeve with 8x of a card (yes, that stretches the sleeve) and move on to the next one.

Now it’s time to separate your pile into the “JANK” pile (bad) and the “GOOD” pile. Since these are just randoms, you’re going to have a LOT of bad ones.

A quick aside on “JANK”…

Bad ones are easy to identify! They have a high casting cost, no abilities, and no potential. They have never seen competitive play, have nothing unique about them, and you wouldn’t hesitate to burn them as kindling in a fire to keep warm at night. Examples of this include classics like Craw Wurm / Hill Giant / Merfolk of the Pearl Trident and friends. They do NOT include cards like: Llanowar Elves, Brainstorm, Disenchant etc… Basically, anything that is even FRINGE playable stays out of the “JANK” pile. Someone, somewhere collects it, or needs it for a deck.

Now take all your jank and set it aside in a box. Seal the lid and let them fester. If a mouse eats them, not a biggie! You’ll be using this box for three REAL reasons.

1)      If somehow hell freezes over and one of the cards in your jank box sees play, well, you did a terrible job evaluating what’s jank and what isn’t for starters haha :P. But you can go through that box and take out all of the copies you have and trade them away OR put them back into your “good pile”.

2)      Getting a friend who knows a lot about magic and prices to double check your work. You don’t want to be forgetting about great cards like Aether Vial / Standstill and (heaven forbid!) Force of Wills!

3)      Using the cards to put together sets. A long, hard, grueling and arduous task! :S

Now that you’ve separated the good, the bad, and the ugly, it’s time to sort. Ignore your jank, it’s not worth the time and effort (unless you’re putting sets together). When I went through my collection the first time, it literally took me WEEKS to organize everything. But now that it’s all in its correct place, it’s super convenient and well worthwhile. Organizing my collection thoroughly also allowed me to sell a huge chunk of it to a store since it was all catalogued.

Decide how much detail you want to go into. Here is a little list that shows organization methods that I use or have heard of going from most work / most detail to least work / least detail.

A)     By set and card number.

Obvioulsy the most work intensive with the highest payoff. Separate your cards into sets, then separate them by color, then by number. I like to use this method when I’m trying to complete sets but that’s about it!

B)      By set and color.

This is what I do for most of my collection. I organize by set because that will put my binders in an order that allows me to reference cards quickly, and by color so that they are at least in a general location. I find one of the main benefits of this system is that when a format changes, you don’t have to reorganize as you’re already by sets, so you just go further back or forward in your collection.

(B-2 = By set, no color)

C)      By format and color.

All of your cards divided by format (Standard / Extended / Modern / etc…) and by color. You’ll know where to look for a card, but it may take you a while to find it. Note that when a format changes, you’ll have to go through your collection and make the changes as well. Depending on the size of your piles, it may be better to just go with option “B”.

(C-2 = By format, no color)

D)     By color.

Self-explanatory. Have fun finding your 1-of’s! I guess it’s better than having your piles everywhere though…

E)      The random chaos theory.

All of your cards are in one place, but there is no “real” organization. They’re just “cleaned up”.

This is going to be a LOT of work if you have a big collection. I actually had friends come over to help me (on multiple nights) and hooked them up w / food and beers for their services. A little bribe here and there never hurt anyone (well, maybe their livers… lol).

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Thus ends our venture into ORGGanizing your collection PART 1: THE BULK. I hope this has helped you think about the way your cards are organized, and if you haven’t started yet, given you some ideas on how to proceed.

My main goal is always to save time in the long run and avoid frustration when I need to find something. I can’t stress enough that this is NOT easy, but when you finish and can look back on your collection and smile because you know that you can find all 40 of your Serra Angels within seconds it will all be worth it. ;)

Stay tuned for PART 2: THE TRADERS, coming soon to a blog site near you!

TALKBACK!

How do YOU ORGGanize YOUR collection?

Do YOU have any more tips and tricks you’d like to share?

Cheers!

Carl Szalich