Cracking open a Metal Raiders booster pack and pulling that secret rare Gate Guardian is a feeling that can’t be described if you aren’t an avid Yu-Gi-Oh player. There are a few emotions that go through your body in that short time span of about 5 seconds.
Shock, happiness, and the feeling of awesomeness. Now that you have that awesome card that you just pulled, you need to keep it in mint condition so that it retains the highest market value possible if you ever plan to sell or trade it.
What’s the best way to store and keep all your Yu-Gi-Oh cards in mint condition? The best way to store your rare cards to keep them mint is to sleeve them and put them in a trade binder. The best way to store your commons is to put them in big card boxes.
There are a lot of different methods to store your cards, as well as an endless amount of products to help with card storage which can sometimes be overwhelming. In this comprehensive guide we will go over the best methods and products to store and keep all your cards in perfect condition.
Store Commons in Large Card Boxes
Hunting for that secret or ultra rare is not only expensive, but also creates another problem. You will most likely be left with hundreds, if not thousands, of common Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I do not recommend throwing any cards away as each card actually has value and can be listed to sell on various platforms.
What is the best way to store the hundreds of commons that you will most likely acquire throughout your Yu-Gi-Oh pack openings? Card boxes. Plain and simple. Many people use shoe boxes or any other boxes that they can find sitting around their home. This is a great way to start, but as your collection grows, you’re going to need to upgrade to something that has a lot more capacity and strength.
I personally recommend using the large BCW card boxes. They are very sturdy and come in various sizes depending on how many cards you need stored. If you want to see the current price and details of these boxes you can click here to take a look at them on Amazon.
The next thing you might want to think about is organization. It’s quick and easy to just stuff all your commons into a huge card box and call it a day, but if you ever need to find a card you may spend a lot of time searching for that one common you are looking for.
I personally recommend sorting them by card type first. Spell, trap, and monster card. Once you have them separated into these three categories, you can take it a step further by putting them in descending alphabetical order from A-Z.
Create a Database for Your Common Cards
To take it even one step further, you can create some sort of excel document or word document that shows how many duplicate cards you have of each type. You can even list their selling values so you can already have an idea of how much it can sell or trade for if somebody you know needs that particular card.
Place this nice database in a format of spells, traps, and monsters in alphabetical order with a quantity and price column. This will ensure that your common card collection stays stored in an organized and easy to find fashion.
Put All Your Rares in Card Sleeves
Any card that holds a decent amount of value, including the non-holographic rares, should be placed into a card sleeve. Placing all of your holographic and non-holographic rares in card sleeves will help protect them from dust, fingerprints, bends, and tears.
There are tons of different card sleeves on the market that you can choose from. Use your favorite card sleeves as most of them will do a great job at protecting your cards. I personally use these card sleeves by Ultra Pro on all of my Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They come in a wide variety of colors and fit the cards perfect.
Double Sleeving
Double sleeving a card is when you use two card sleeves instead of one. Pretty self explanatory right? A question you may be wondering if you are new to collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards, or any TCG cards in general, is why would you even need to use two sleeves?
That question leads us to the next step to keep your cards as mint as possible. Some card binders are what we call top-loading. In many cases where your binder gets flipped upside down, your cards may fall out. Double sleeving your cards will help prevent this by keeping them nice and tight in the binder.
Organize and Store Your Rares in Card Binders
Once you have gotten all your cards sleeved up and protected, you now need to store them in card binders. I recommend doing the same type of organization strategy for these cards as I mentioned up above with your common cards.
Separate your monsters into different categories like fusion, extra deck, side deck, ritual, etc. This will help making find your cards easier in the future when you decide to build new decks or trade them. Purchase multiple binders and place each category of monster in the binders you deem appropriate.
If you’re holographic collection isn’t very big yet, then you can get away with keeping them all in one or two binders for the time being until your collection of Yu-Gi-Oh cards grow.
There are two different types of card binders that you will encounter when looking for the best one to suit your needs. I’ll separate them into two categories. Top-loading, and side-loading binders.
I highly recommend a card binder with a zipper to ensure none of your cards ever leave the binder if they were to ever come loose from their pages.
Top-Loading
Top-loading binders contain pages where you need to load your cards through the top of the sleeve. The main concern many people have with these is if your binder were to ever be flipped upside-down, your cards have a high risk of falling out.
This is usually eliminated by double sleeving your cards. The only downside to double sleeving your cards is that you will need to spend more money on card sleeves than you normally would.
Side-Loading
Side-loading card binders are exactly how they sound. You need to slide the cards from either the left or right sides. These types of binders usually hold cards in place better than top-loading binders. I would still recommend sleeving your cards at least once before placing them inside
Which One Is Better?
In my opinion, both types of binders do a great job at what they are made to do. They protect your cards from damage. It comes down to mostly personally preference. I personally like the side-loading binders because it gives me a little more piece of mind that my cards may be less likely to fall out.
I personally like these card binders by BCW. They are side-loading and they support single and double sleeved cards. They also have a zipper to keep all your cards in the binder if they ever become loose or fall out. This is pretty much as good as it gets.
Final Thoughts
Storing and keeping your Yu-Gi-Oh cards in mint condition will ensure that they hold their market value. Storing your common cards in large card boxes with an organized database will make your life so much easier.
It can be a lot of work depending on the amount of cards you have, but you will continuously thank yourself in the future whenever you need to pull out cards to sell or trade.
Sleeving and keeping your rares in card binders is an absolute must. Protecting your investment is one of the most important aspects in trading card games. You never know when that one card will sky rocket in price, and having it in mint condition will make it worth that much more in the end.
I hope you found this guide helpful for all of your future storage needs for your Yu-Gi-Oh collection. Thanks for reading!