Use a card catalog to organize your Pokemon cards. There are other options too but a card catalog will keep them separate from each other and clean. Furthermore, organize your cards by rarity and numbers so they are easy to browse.
In this piece, we will look at how to organize Pokemon cards!
Different Ways of Organizing Pokemon Cards
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that there is more than one way to organize Pokemon cards. Now, the difference lies in how you organize them based on your personal preference.
In A Binder
This is one of the most common ways of organizing your Pokemon cards. And more often than not, it doesn’t require you to go shopping.
Most people have a binder lying around the house, which solves problems related to both storage and organizing.
But this category has subcategories within it depending on whether you are a beginner, a player, or a collector. Here’s how you make it work for each category.
Beginners
A beginner is someone who has typically been collecting these cardboard cards for about 6 months to 1 year. The collection is likely to be small, and you will be able to fit them all into one decent-sized binder.
Storing in a single binder works well for those who want to take the collection somewhere, whether to show it to friends or participate in an event at the local card store.
Players
If you have a set of cards that are most likely categorized as competitive decks, you want to keep these in a binder too.
Pokemon cards are considered competitive if you have a standard format or extended sets. These are collected by players and are bulky because some might also have booster boxes or occasional packs.
Players are also likely to have a lot of cards that they might want to trade to have a complete deck. That means you need a different type of binder based on your collection.
But you always have the option of arranging them by deck so that you can access them easily.
Collectors
And finally, there are the collectors. This population is not very interested in trading. But they do buy the booster packs because they are, as the name suggests, collectors by nature.
This category of people needs to work a little hard on their organizational methods because if you keep buying packs but don’t arrange them, things will fall off the wagon pretty quickly.
Then again, cardboard collectors of this game find great solace in card binders because it gives them the chance to look at their prized possessions as often as they want without causing any damage.
But it is also worth remembering that most people overlap between two or more of these categories. So, it’s good to have a game plan which lays out what kind of card collection you are likely to possess over time and how you want to organize them.
By Deck Boxes
This is the way of using deck boxes to store your Pokemon cards. This is for individuals building their collection by, you guess it, decks. You can get a lot of deck boxes in the market that are perfect for this type of collector.
You can get the box from anywhere and store the cards right where you can see and access them easily, like in a closet or a shelf. Since the deck boxes are small in size, it’s not a task.
And if you are going to try a mix and match to make your game stronger, you might have different decks. That means you want to make some labels and stick them on your deck boxes to know what kind of armor you want to carry along on any given day.
In A Card Catalog
Serious collectors usually have more cards than they can count in one go. That can be a tricky thing to keep track of. If you are one of those, you want to get a nice big card catalog.
These catalogs are huge and made of wood. But they come with some lovely drawers that help you organize your cards by deck, number, type, or any other pattern.
These kinds of card catalogs are easy to find. If you’re looking online, there are plenty of options like Craigslist or eBay. And if you want to go looking for them physically, you can check out garage sales and flea markets.
If you’re willing to spend a little extra, you might want to visit antique stores to find some true collectors’ items. But if you’re going for secondhand card catalogs, you might want to be extra careful unless you have a lot of time to spend on restoration.
In Storage Boxes
This is a universal solution for most storing and organizing needs. When you are looking for boxes that will suit Pokemon cards, you want to find narrow ones with box sleeves. These are meant especially to hold cards.
These boxes are easily available at office supply stores, local hobby or game stores, and online. Then there are large boxes that you might think are not meant for cards, but quite a few of those are recommended to store trading cards.
Once you place your collection in these boxes, you might want to add a label based on how you have categorized your cards.
Otherwise, that will be a mess you will be untangling for a long time. Rookie mistake!
By Energy and Colors
No matter the kind of storage system you pick, there are some simple ways of organizing the cards.
When it comes to Pokemon cards, you can make that differentiation based on their energy.
That means you will be segregating them based on the energy’s colors like white, black, gray, brown, purple, blue, red, yellow, and green. And then, you can keep the trainer cards separately.
If you take to this kind of organizational style, you will have 10 stacks of Pokemon cards which means you can locate them easily whenever you need to draw certain energy.
By Rarity
This organizational style divides the cards based on how rare they are. So, you will end up with a really big stack. And if you want to sell these cards in bulk, you will have a great benefit in the future.
Each of these cards comes with different icons at the bottom. That’s how you know how rare a card is.
Circles are quite common, diamonds are not so common, stars are rare, and a rainbow with an A in the center is amazingly rare.
You might also have high rarity cards like rainbow cards, golden cards, GX, EX, Vmax, and V cards. If you do have them, these will be your most precious cards.
If you sort them out based on a specific set, you will be able to summon them whenever you want. That’s a great benefit if you want to show off your collection.
By Numbers
Finally, you can sort out your Pokemon cards based on numbers. The numbers we are talking about here are the ones the cards are given based on where they are placed in a set.
Some sets have as many as 200 cards. In these sets, the cards have numbers like 25/200, 55/200, or 130/200, which tells us which position they are to be placed in.
Recently, we have seen packs that come with “secret rare” cards. These are hard to find and are not often a part of any pack. They can be a part of a specific set, but they are like an add-on. So, they have numbers beyond 200, like 202/200.
This might take you a long time when you are organizing your cards, but it is an extremely efficient method of getting the job done.
FAQs on How to Organize Pokemon Cards
Do Binders Damage Pokemon Cards?
Binders have been known to cause damage in the form of scratches if you use both sides of the page sleeve. This is because the cards tend to rub against each other.
Why are D-ring Binders Better for Cards?
D-ring binders are better because the ring tries to significantly reduce the smashing of card edges on the inside.
