How To: Gaming
THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
How To: Gaming
THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
◆ CARD CARE · LAYERS 03–05 · THE THING THAT HOLDS MANY
A sleeve can only ever get one card wrong. Everything on this page gets several hundred cards wrong at the same time, in the same way, for months, without showing you anything.
Up to here, protection was a question of fit. From here it is a question of load — and load is the one thing on this page that damages a card without ever touching it.
Binders and boxes are usually argued about as though one were better, which is the wrong question: they do two different jobs and most collections need both. The decisions that actually matter are duller than the argument. How much room is left in the page. What the plastic is made of. Whether the thing is standing up or lying down.
◆ SOLID = THE CARD · HATCHED = STRUCTURE · DASHED = SLACK · SAME DRAWING AS THE LAYER BELOW, CARRIED FURTHER OUT
Nine pockets is the standard page for a standard card, and the pocket does one job: keep the card from moving sideways. In a box the same job is done by dividers, and a box without them is not organised, it is a single long column of cards leaning on each other.
The single most useful thing to look for. A page with room left in it lets cards slide; a box packed to the lid stops them moving at all and starts pressing them together instead. Neither extreme is safe, and the correct amount is snug enough not to travel, loose enough to lift one out without pulling.
Rings hold pages open flat and put a row of metal through the sheet; side-loading pages hold cards in from the edge and cannot spill when the binder is turned upside down. Boxes have no mechanism at all, which is why they never fail in an interesting way and why they are what most large collections end up in.
The one thing on this page that acts on a scale of years rather than months. PVC releases plasticiser as it ages and the card is sitting against it the whole time. Pages and sleeves that are safe for long storage say so on the packet, and the ones that do not say so are usually not being shy.
Upright, like books. A binder stored flat carries the weight of everything above it through the pages, and a box stored flat does the same to the cards at the bottom. Nothing else in this chapter is fixed this cheaply.
Every layer above the sleeve is holding several hundred cards at once, which means every mistake up here is made several hundred times. Nothing in this chapter scales except the errors.
The box goes on its side under two others because that is how it fits. Every card in it is now carrying the ones above it, and not one of them shows anything at all.
Lift the lid and the top row is no longer perfectly straight. It springs back when you fan it, which is exactly why nobody acts on it.
The curve is now in the card rather than in the stack. This is the moment the damage became permanent, and it is the only moment on this row with no warning attached.
Usually when the card is being sold, graded or given away — which is to say at the exact moment its condition finally has to be stated out loud.
◆ THE FIX IS FREE AND IT IS ENTIRELY IN THE FIRST COLUMN: STAND IT UP
Corner wear announces itself and warping does not. The damage you can see is the damage you were already going to catch.
Everything in it is visible without being handled, which is the whole point and also the whole cost: pages, rings and covers all take room, so a binder holds a fraction of what the same shelf space holds in boxes. Use it for the cards you actually want to see.
Sold by how many cards it takes, stackable, cheap, and with no mechanism to go wrong. The cost is that nothing in it is visible, so a box without dividers and a label is a box you will one day tip out onto a table.
The usual failure is picking one and forcing everything into it — a binder stuffed past its ring capacity, or a box holding the twenty cards somebody actually cares about. Sort by whether you want to look at it, not by what it is worth.
A binder that is too full and a box that is too empty are the same mistake, made in opposite directions. Both of them let cards move.
UPRIGHT, LIKE BOOKS. THE CHEAPEST DECISION IN THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER AND THE ONE MOST OFTEN GOT WRONG BY ACCIDENT.
Nobody has ever called me about a bent card in month three. They call in month nine, and by then there is nothing to say.
The last layer stops being about protection at all, and starts being about the reason you kept any of it.