If you own trading cards, you probably want to show them off, right? It isn’t uncommon for people to have a trading card binder where they store their cards. How do you use this, though? Do you need to sleeve the cards before you place them into the binder?
In most cases, you should sleeve cards in a binder. Most binder pages have been designed with the intention of you doing this. You will need to use a perfect-fit sleeve, though.
Here, we want to go into a little bit more depth on whether you should be doing this, as well as give you an idea as to whether there is any real risk in placing your trading cards into a binder.
Should I Double Sleeve in a Binder?
Most binders have been designed in such a way that they expect you to sleeve the cards before you place them into the binder. However, this does not necessarily mean that you should double sleeve them.
We assume that when you are talking about double sleeving, you are talking about putting your cards into a perfect fit sleeve, and then placing the cards into another sleeve before you place it into the binder.
Well, you don’t need to do that. The binder itself is going to act as a sleeve. This means that you only need to be placing the trading card into a perfect fit sleeve before you place it into the binder. You don’t need that second sleeve.
In theory, you don’t really even need to do this. A well-made binder should give your cards a decent amount of protection as it is. However, we like to use an extra sleeve on the more expensive cards that we own. It really does help to cut down on the risk of damage to the card, which helps to keep the value of the card for as long as possible. This is brilliant if you are looking to keep a collection or plan on trading the cards in the future.
We recommend using Perfect FIT sleeves by Pro Support if you are looking to double sleeve your Pokemon cards. Click our link here to check the current price on Amazon.
Do Binders Damage Cards?
In the past, binders would damage the cards. There were a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, a lot of binder pages used to be poorly made. There was a lot of space that the card could move about in the pocket that you placed it in. When this happened, you would get to enjoy the front of the card being scratched. If the binder page was old enough, you may even have seen it jump out of the binder page. A trading card hitting the floor probably isn’t a great thing to have happen, is it?
In the past, cheaper binder pages would have been made with harsher materials. They also could have scratched the card. In some cases, the binder pages may even have caused discoloration of the cards.
A lot of these issues have now been cleared up with more modern binder page offerings. However, we do still urge you to stick with some of the more expensive options on the market. This way you can be sure that you are giving your trading cards the best life possible.
That being said, we wouldn’t really recommend storing cards in a binder if you are planning on getting them graded by PSA in the future. You can, but we reckon that most binders could potentially damage that card enough to bring it down a grade or two. In our opinion, this isn’t really going to be worth the risk. it may actually just be better to double sleeve your cards and store them elsewhere.
In our opinion, binders are for displaying collections and trading away some of your less valuable cards. They aren’t for storing expensive cards that hold a ton of value.
We recommend using only high quality binders and sleeves for your cards. We suggest this Vault X 9 pocket side loading binder to store your most valuable cards. It will protect, secure, and keep your cards in mint condition.
Should I Sleeve Every Card?
No. This would be expensive.
We suggest that you only sleeve the cards that have a decent value to them. If the card is worth only a couple of cents on the secondary market, then we wouldn’t really recommend spending a couple of cents to get it sleeved up. It seems like a waste of money.
Everybody has their own minimum value for a card before they believe that it is going to be worth sleeving them up. For example, we never sleeve up cards that are worth under $2. In fact, even that $2 may be a little bit too low. This is because we know that these cards are going to be easily available, and it is really just a waste of a card sleeve. Those things can get pretty expensive, after all. This is especially true if you are planning on using perfect-fit card sleeves.
That being said, the choice is completely yours to make. You can sleeve up whatever card that you want. However, since most people are buying multiple booster packs per week, this will start to become unfeasible pretty quickly, and we tend to avoid it.
Can You Place Two Cards Into the Same Pocket in a Binder?
Yes. Although, it isn’t really recommended.
Most binder pockets have been designed to hold one card and a sleeve. This is because they are quite a tight fit, and you don’t want the cards to be falling out of their pocket.
If you have a couple of cheaper cards that you want to store in a binder, but they are unsleeved, then you may be able to fit 2 to 3 cards into the same pocket.
However, do bear in mind that this is something that will end up damaging the cards a little bit. This is because they are going to be bouncing around in the binder with one another. This will cause damage to the face of the cards.
If you overload a card sleeve with 2-3 cards, then you will likely be stretching that binder page. This means that you will never be able to store just one card in that particular pocket again.
Again, the choice is completely yours. If you want the binder to last as long as possible, then store your cards in singles inside of the binder.
Final Thoughts
You should be sleeving cards when you place them into a binder. It provides a little bit of extra protection for the cards.
Do bear in mind that no matter how you store cards in a binder, it is not recommended for those that are planning on getting their cards graded by PSA. It could help to bring the value of the card down.
You should also try to ensure that you buy the best binder pages possible to offer the best protection for your cards. Ultra-Pro make some tremendous binder pages.