Storing Magic Cards

witch_ie

I am finally at the point where I no longer have the space to store my vast collection of Magic cards and similar trading card games in the house and would like to move them to the garage where they can stay until it's time to play with them once more. My concern with doing so is that I live in a rather damp environment with lots of fog and rain and want to make sure they are appropriately protected. Right now, they are sitting in multiple dresser drawers in boxes and bookshelves in the house.

My question is, does anyone have any suggestions for the type of container that would help keep them safe? I've been checking out chests, trunks, and footlockers on Amazon and at the Container Store, but am unsure what to get. I have a lot of cards and so may need to buy multiple trunks, so would prefer not to pay more than $130 for a single one. Thoughts? Good or not so great experiences to share?

Skoal Cat

Good lord, how many do you have? I have several thousand packed in boxes and it takes up a small corner of a closet. If you are going to stack on top of each other, I'd put a layer of cardboard in between just to not smoosh them too much.

witch_ie

I've never counted them, but will be storing them both for myself and another person...I would guess between the two of us, we are easily in the thousands range. Between us, we have roughly 8 large binders filled as well as at least 20 long card boxes. It's mostly the boxes that I want to store separately, but if I can fit the binders and other cards in too, that will be a bonus.

Skoal Cat

Baring those of legitimate value or entire sets, you may want to get rid of the binders. They don't save room.
Mine are literally packed end to end in random boxes I found around my house. I'd be shocked if a shoebox held less than a thousand cards.

What I'm saying is, I wouldn't trust cards in the garage unless you live in a low humidity climate.

Darkewolfe

Your cards are still going to slowly rot in a box in the garage, just due to humidity, unless you invest in a much spendier dry box.

Fandyien

buy a nice plastic tub or something with a clip-on waterproof top

stack longboxes of cards in there, put binders on top

maybe cover it in plastic sheeting/a tarp for extra protection, put it on a shelf in case your shit floods. one of my buddies has like ~10,000 cards between him and his girlfriend and they have an entire closet devoted to them, and there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of cards scattered all over his house in decks/piles so i can totally understand how you'd need more space to store a vast collection

Forbe!

Freezer bags? Suck all the air out with a straw? Then stick them all in a plastic container.

Just storing them in a large rubermaid container probably wont do much for you, temporarily it may be fine, but in a humid environment your cards are going to get wet, and eventually start rotting.

Personally, I would take this as an opportunity to get rid of redundant cards/play sets and store the ones that you're probably going to use.

Edit: Just had a thought. http://www.amazon.com/Space-Bag-WBTS-9010UT-Vacuum-Seal-Storage/dp/B000M9OH7Q

Not sure how water/air tight they are. But if they are able to hold a vacuum for a long period of time it might be what you need.

joshuadewaal

Why not sell them all? You decide to play again, use the cash to buy cards. I would keep them in a closet, and far away from the garage. They get ruined they won't be worth anything.

see317

Fandyien wrote:

buy a nice plastic tub or something with a clip-on waterproof top
stack longboxes of cards in there, put binders on top
maybe cover it in plastic sheeting/a tarp for extra protection, put it on a shelf in case your shit floods. one of my buddies has like ~10,000 cards between him and his girlfriend and they have an entire closet devoted to them, and there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of cards scattered all over his house in decks/piles so i can totally understand how you'd need more space to store a vast collection

I'd go for this method. Except move everything to longboxes to save space (as opposed to binders). Get a couple of bins from target or walmart or whatever. Preferably clear so if any moisture starts building up inside you can see.
After you load the tub with the boxes, toss a few silicate gel packs in to take care of any atmospheric moisture that might get in.

If you're still worried, a thin bead of silicone caulk around the lip of the bin should provide a better seal when you snap the lid on. (Let is set and cure before you put the lid on, unless you want them really sealed in)

Of course, it should be mentioned that I live in Colorado, which isn't exactly known for high humidity.

corky842

What about a vacuum sealer, one designed for food?

Feral

I think Fandyien's suggestion of a plastic tupperware bin with a locking lid is probably your best bet.

Darkewolfe

A plastic tupperware bin with a locking lid and some silicate packs will work mostly, but if you're storing for a couple years in an at-all-humid area, you're going to have some warping and rotting.

Forar

joshuadewaal wrote:

Why not sell them all? You decide to play again, use the cash to buy cards.

Selling your cards is generally a bad idea unless you're pretty much absolutely sure you'll never play again.

You probably won't get nearly what they're worth for them. Aside from the really highly sought after stuff, you're often lucky to get pennies on the dollar for everything else. At least one of the big online stores literally buys non-chase/choice stuff by weight. While many of the commons and uncommons might only be 5-50 cents apiece, getting back into the game and needing dozens or hundreds of those at a time to build a few decks adds up, especially when you may have had most of them just laying around before you cashed out.

And while many older cards stagnate or lose their value, you never know what's going to shoot up overnight later. I have uncommons from back when I played just after High School that are worth $5-10+ apiece. Some rares I tucked in a binder nearly a decade ago went from under $1 apiece to $15-20 each in the past few months.

Will this happen to most cards? No. Many? Probably not. But selling them all off may mean looking back one day at a deck you'd like to build, but can't justify dropping $50 on uncommons you used to tear up for counters.

Personally, I wouldn't put them out in the garage unless interior/closet space was at an absolute premium. I'd get a few of the white cardboard 4 column boxes and load those up (I have 3 filled at home right now) and stick them at the bottom of a closet.

If they absolutely had to go outside, I'd probably get the above along with a couple of waterproof tubs from Canadian Tire/Home Hardware/Home Depot/Whatever and use those for storage. Perhaps look into whether or not some of those moisture absorbing packets would help/do any harm to the cards, and if not, toss some of those in as well as an extra layer of security.

If you have a large enough and potentially valuable enough collection that you're concerned putting them in the garage (and I'd feel the same way), I'd lean away from dealing with the contingencies of garage existance and just try to find some decent storage boxes and put them out of the way somewhere in the home/apartment.

NibCrom

Is there something else you could put in the garage instead of your Magic cards?

witch_ie

Thanks everyone for the great responses. I know putting them in the garage isn't ideal. What we might try doing is a test run with a few less valuable cards for maybe a month just to see how we fare. Also, I think it might be a good idea to keep the really valuable cards (aka a signed Ruby Mox) in the house in a small box. As for moving other stuff into the garage, we already planning on doing that too. Our long term plan to is to move to a larger house in the next few years, so hopefully the cards would only be out there for 2 years at most.

Skoal Cat

I like the idea of vaccum sealing them