Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Joy of a Completed Shelf

A completed shelf full of Topps complete sets!



This was a goal I set for myself back in January (I'll revisit all of my goals tomorrow). I wanted to get all of my Topps sets into binders for easy access and viewing.

Now that school is out for the summer (I love being a teacher!) I've got some extra time on my hands. I had 20 years worth of cards to get into binders. I worked through one or two a day while a ballgame was on in the background.



And now, they're done! The joy of a completed shelf!



My earliest ones are on the top (that' 1969 - 1974, '75-'79 are on the top of another shelf). Then working down, are the 80's,



90's,



and 2000's. I've got space for ten more years on the bottom.

In addition to the cards, each binder has a couple lists in them.



One list has all the players in alphabetical order. The other has the players listed by team. These make it very easy to find a player's card. If I want to find George Brett's 1987 card, a quick scan of the list shows me to go to #400. Quick and easy!



And if you want to know what other Royals were featured in 1987, here's what a team page looks like:



It feels good to have one goal accomplished. Tomorrow, I'll look at how I'm doing with my other goals.

14 comments:

  1. WOW! Very Impressive, so neat and organized, wish I had the space for something like this. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. This is just awesome. I wish I had the space to do something like this with all of my complete sets. I have over 80 right now including my 1981 to 2010 Topps sets.

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  3. That's great - I especially appreciate that all your binders match. I've got four shelves full of binders myself but they are (almost) all different types...the whole thing looks much less organized.

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  4. Man, I'm never going to get my binders to match ...

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  5. Nice job!

    I've started down this same road. I have complete (or near-complete) sets from 1966-70, 72, 81, and 87-92 (top 3 brands). Also Phillies' binders from 52-69, 70-79, 80-84, 85-89, 90-93, 00-10.

    The only way to get the binders to match is to pre-purchase as many as you think you will need all at the same time (I just bought 30 binders in bulk).

    I'm now transferring my late-1980s factory sets to binders.

    I see you're using a heavy-duty shelf. I'm using one of those particle-board units with the wood-grained contact paper on it. (I'm afraid it's going to collapse under the weight.)

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  6. congrats! thats really impressive

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  7. Very nice,Id love to get my card that neat and organized.

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  8. That looks awesome. Two things stand out. One, it looks like you painted aluminum shelves brown. And two, the wax pack wrapper on the binder is a nice touch. My wife would appreciate it if I did something similar.

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  9. I've been on the road all day, so this is the first chance to respond.

    Thanks all for the kind words.

    Re: the binders...I made a conscious decision early on to have them all match. In the old days I used whatever binder I could get, and I just didn't like the mish-mashed look of it. The ones I'm using now are the generic baseball card binders that have been around for years and should be for years to come. I went with them because I knew I could get more any time. I get mine 12 at a time from TCbulk.com Their price was the best I could find.

    Re: the shelves....They are painted brown. That was one condition that Mrs. WW insisted on. She didn't want garage-looking shelves in the house. So we painted them the same color as the floor trim and my desk. That way it all matches!

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  10. WW,

    In the first photo, there's another shelf partially visible on the right. Is that the Cubs shelf?

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  11. I'm having shelf/binder/complete set envy. Great looking collection! Congrats.

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  12. Jim, the other shelf has all of my other complete sets, Fleer, Donruss, etc. My Cubs shelf in on the wall opposite the Topps shelf. Here is what it looks like.

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  13. Every time I see a post like that from you, I feel a little worse about my lack of organization.

    Great Job!

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