My little project..... need your help. (PICS)

[Big Ray]

First post... so… hi. Hoped I picked the right forum. If not, let me know and I’ll delete or move it.

I’m looking for some constructive feedback on a project I have been working on for a couple of years.

First.. a little background.

I started collecting with my Dad when I was too young to remember. Like you, our collection of cards exploded. When I had two boys, collecting and trading was an awesome hobby to do with my dad and his grandsons, and provided for some really great days of talking around the dinner table about players, teams, even how much cards changed since his childhood.

When my dad passed away, his collection passed on to me. I found myself with hundreds of thousands of cards. Some junk, but a lot of great cards, 10,000+ graded cards. 100k+ worth holding on to.

My Dad and I started off holding a lot of these in boxes. Shoe boxes, etc. After he passed, I started storing in both graded and ungraded multi-slot boxes. Then those boxes went into bins and those bins grew and grew.

The hobby began to kinda suck as my sons and I couldn’t just go and “put our hands on" some of our favorite cards. We had to go through bin after bin, box after box.

It was a problem in dire need of solution, as my sons and I WERE NOT about to stop collecting.

About four years ago my wife told me that I had a “cardboard problem on my hands”. (Tell me something I didn't know)

That’s when I started to look for a solution.

The problem seemed pretty simple.

How do you store thousands of cards in a way you could get easy access to them?


The answer seemed all-to-easy. I started looking at others who had this same problem, but maybe not with card collecting. The solution came pretty quickly. Remember those old Dewey Decimal Card Catalogs in school? Well, those have long gone past the way-side – replace by computers. I thought that these things had to be laying around. Finding one was a lot harder than I thought.

First it started with looking for a large enough one to hold tens of thousands of cards.

It took a year, but I found this ol’ Bessie in LA. 150 Drawers! PERFECT… well, not really.

Then, I had to see if the cards would actually fit. For cards in penny sleeves and top loaders, perfect . BGS graded cards just made it in. PSA – damned-it all to hell… off by 1/8 of an inch. At least this catalog.

Well, I plunked down $500 bucks and loaded it on a trailer and drove it back to my woodshop behind my house in Northern California. Cost more for the trailer rental and gas than the actual catalog.

I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I knew nothing about wood craftsmanship. I knew a thing or two about engineering and design, but was lost in a woodshed.

So, that’s when I decided to redouble my efforts. I packaged up and shrink-wrapped my project. All my tools and all the bits and parts.

But not before I measured EVERYTHING.

Then, began constructing in AutoCAD my vision.

I’ll cut to the chase.

I bring you Draft 1 of….. “The Card Holder?”. Whatever I name "it", it will be a family heirloom. Something to pass down to my children’s, children.

Draft Concept 1

I am stuck on a few things, like the bat hanger and the larger drawer hardware. But what I have decided is that....

• 150 drawers won’t be enough. I’m going to need at least five of these for the entire collection.
• I need it to lock. It doesn’t need to be a safe, just a simple way to lock all the drawers all at once, or one by one (haven’t solved that one yet).
• It needs to be somewhat portable.
• The catalog with empty drawers weighs 1,200lbs. With cards, I am estimating 4,000. It will need a hell of a strong base.

I could use some help as I have been heads down for years working on this, if you had any ideas I would gladly like to hear them.

Assuming I am going to construct new ones from scratch…

1. Make the drawers hold the cards vertically rather than horizontal. Grading labels are on the top, not the sides.
2. Make the drawers heftier. They are a little skinny and have been adjusting them to fit the catalog I have, not the catalog I need.
3. I am not sure I am loving the bat-hanger and ball display. This was really to hold some of my son’s little league bats and balls. Not pro stuff. Don’t collect much of that.

Other Ideas?


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Some other photos...

Brother in law and I working in the shop... drinking more than working..

More Concepts:

Base Ideas





Bat Holder:

Look forward to your feedback..

[key2win]

First off welcome to the site, and very cool story you shared.

Wow that is amazing what you are building. Thanks for sharing pics too.

I agree and think the bat and ball holder isnt ideal for what you have planned. I think what you have above is great to use for graded cards and other expensive vintage or rookie cards you may have in top holders.

If you have a lot of sets, maybe put them in year, brand, and numerical order in 9 card holder sheets then in a 3 ring binder?

[Big Ray]

First off welcome to the site, and very cool story you shared.

Wow that is amazing what you are building. Thanks for sharing pics too.

I agree and think the bat and ball holder isnt ideal for what you have planned. I think what you have above is great to use for graded cards and other expensive vintage or rookie cards you may have in top holders.

If you have a lot of sets, maybe put them in year, brand, and numerical order in 9 card holder sheets then in a 3 ring binder?

I agree on the bat holder. I am going to remove it or option it out (leave the support system in to add it on later).

You bring up another thing I have been thinking about.

How to organize.

I literally have been thinking about this for years and their is no real good solution. The best is by player last name. When I think of a card, I think of a player first before I think of a set or team.

That does put me in a pickle because we are set collectors as much as we are player collectors. Less team.

the older the card, the less we collect sets. The very old cards, however, we do collect by the team.

see.. I can't even make up my mind and have been working on this for years.

[key2win]

I used to organize all my cards by team then by last name, but when I get new cards I had to redo all of them. Plus taking the cards out of the card sheets could potentially ruin the cards.

So I changed it all to each set. So for example, since you collect baseball. 1989 Upperdeck all in numerical order so the Griffey RC is card #1 and the first card on the top left sheet. I use both sides of the 9 card sheet so 18 cards per page.

If you are missing say 9 cards from a 500 card set, leave open slots where those cards go, so in future if you get it, you just insert them where its supposed to go. And the other cards never have to be taken out and can stay in mint condition.