The Best Way to Carry Your Cards When Getting Autographs
With spring in bloom, you’re planning a trip to the ballpark. You will arrive early for the best chance to graph the players upon their arrival or during warm-ups. You’ve sifted through your card collection, setting aside players for both teams. You’ve prepped your cards. Your Sharpie is flowing well.
There’s just one problem.
During the last trip to the park, you missed a couple players because you couldn’t flip through your stack in time to find their cards. Oh, and there was that incident last year when someone bumped you, spilling your cards to the ground. Picking the peanut shells off wasn’t much fun.
So, how do you carry your cards securely while still allowing quick access at a moment’s notice? It’s easy with a couple inexpensive items from an art supply store.
What you’ll need:
• Wire-bound artist pad (9”x12”, 140 lb.)
• Acid-free self-adhesive photo corners
Step 1: Place a self-adhesive photo corner on each corner of your card.
Step 2: Affix the card to the artist pad. (You should be able to fit eight cards on each side of a page.)
Repeat these steps for all your cards. (NOTE: The photo corners do not damage your cards and they are simple to remove.)
There are many ways to organize your pad—one page per player, alphabetically, by team. It’s up to you to decide what works for your collection and the file retrieval process in your head.
If you use this method, leave a comment and let me know how it works for you. If you use a different technique, share it with us.
I’m going to a MiLB game this summer, and I have a ton of cards. This answered the one question I had. Thanks!
Glad you found it helpful.
The only thing I would suggest would be to use only two photocorners per card instead of four. I usually put photocorners in the lower right and upper left corners of the card, and it secures the card well and is easier to get cards in and out when you replace cards. Also you will only need half as many photocorners so it will be a little cheaper.
Good suggestion Travis, thanks!
Matt,
I have been using this method for about 3 seasons now, and it works great. i use 2 photo corners, but it is a great way to maximize your graphs
I’ve used the photo corner method for awhile (2 corners per card, 4 corners per 3×5 or 4×6), though I have employed a more hybrid approach. I take normal cardstock pages and set them up as illustrated above, then 3-hole punch them and put them into a binder. This allows me to easily switch pages around and also include other items (8x10s, magazines) in regular plastic sleeves within the same binder.
Great idea Paul — love your hybrid approach.
FINALLY!!!! I have been looking for something like this forever. I have seen people with these setups, but no one was wiling to share the details.
thank you for posting this up.
Happy to help Dustin, thanks for reading.
I like to use the pads with the wire binding on the top of the pad. If you have say the wires down the left side & get a player who is a lefty sometimes you’ll get a sub-par graph or the player might skip the first card all together if you have multiples.
GREAT advice!
Thanks guys love this article how would i store baseballs while graphing?
Thanks
Hi Bryce, I typically put them each in a sandwich bag if I’m on the go and pulling them out of the boxes would be too cumbersome.
What do you use to carry photos? I see people using plain black boxes but I don’t know where to find them
I use a really simple photo folder, the three-sided cardboard kind you can use to mail photos.
Matt
I use a different method that really let’s you maximize your experience. I use two photo corners per card on a 9 pocket page which lets you put 9 cards per sheet.
The two items listed to purchase through Amazon did not work for me. I found the cards were getting damaged on the corners by the photo corners. Also when carrying the book the cards fell out. This method did not work for me. I am going to try trading card sheets as that worked for me in my youth.
Sorry to hear it didn’t work out for you. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I use a different variation of this method, I use a sketchbook that hold 3 cards per page and I find that more manageable than the 9×12 artist’s pad
Hey Matt, I happened to make one of these about a month ago. Right now I only have a team set for the Cleveland Indians. Do you know a way that I can get other teams and players too?
Any tricks to remove the cards from this setup without bending their corners (other than just “very carefully”)? I’ve managed to get most of my cards out damage-free by peeling one of the (two) photo corners off slowly, but sometimes it’s tough to do without lifting on the card, so every now and then I’ll bend one. Anyone else have this happen? (To clarify, the system seems great; I just want to know if I’m doing something wrong.)
Do they make the paper for binders ?
Hey, Matt! Just stumbled apron your article and found this so very helpful. Been trying to find a wya to fix this ongoing problem for years and finally found a way. Thanks for being a lifesaver in the card/autograph business,