Things You'll Need:
- Card sleeves (soft and hard)
- Storage boxes
- Albums with sleeved pages
- Screw-shut cases
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Step 1
Separate your highly valuable cards from your moderately valuable cards and set them aside from the cards in your collection that are worth a dollar (or so) or less. Take great care whenever you handle valuable cards. Never touch their corners, handle them by the edges or rest them on surfaces that might scratch or damage the card backings.
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Step 2
Place your least valuable cards in storage boxes. You can organize these boxes however you wish: by set, alphabetically by player, by year or by card publisher. Whatever system you choose, make sure you remember what it is to make it easy for you to find a card if you need to look for it.
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Step 3
Purchase a number of soft and hard sleeves equal to the number of valuable cards you want to store.
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Step 4
Place each valuable card in a soft sleeve first, then put the whole package into a hard plastic sleeve (hard plastic sleeves are also sometimes known as "top loaders"). Again, ensure that you stack or arrange them using some manner of logic that makes sense to you.
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Step 5
Store your valuable sleeved baseball cards in storage boxes as well. Since the top loaders or hard sleeves are over-large, you'll have to place fewer cards in a box and let them rest on the diagonal in order to get the box closed.
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Step 6
Use a screw-shut case instead of storage boxes for your most valuable cards, if you prefer. This is a particularly good idea if your best cards are worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. A screw-shut case is a transparent plastic case that can be screwed shut to hold your card securely and safely in place, protecting its current condition.
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Step 7
Store your card collection in a cool, dry, dark place. High temperatures, humidity and bright light can all affect a card's appearance (and value) with prolonged exposure.
