Business Card Storage
When I receive business cards from friends, family or my business card trader pals I typically sort the business cards out by company or category of interest. I have over 500 categorized interests ranging from Ace Trucking to Metro Zoos.
Some of my interests include banking establishments, trucking or hauling firms, insurance companies, realty and odd jobs like chimney sweeping and taxidermists. I collect all kinds of cards even the plain boring black and white Lawyers’ business cards.
My top ten categories include all of my favorite categories from the many years of business card collecting.
When I receive a large apple box or big case of cards I sort the business cards into these three categories originally:
Cards that I wish to keep and will eventually be categorized into my own Binders
Business cards that I wish to trade away. I store them in large boxes
Verticals and duplicates that go to other business card collectors as trades.
The business cards that I wish to keep are first set out on a large sorting table. I have all my most common companies for example “3M” (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing), “IBM” (International Business Machines), “Century 21” cards, “Police & Fire” or even “Prudential Realty” covering the entire table. The cards that are placed here are the most frequently discovered in a random sampling or unsorted box.
Once the table gets so full that the individual piles are falling over then I will locate the Binder that stores all the “State Farm” Company cards or the “Merrill Lynch” cards and prepare to add the ever growing pile. I then open up the Binder and typically I sort them new cards by each US State and then the Canadian provinces and territories behind index tabs. All my international cards are stored in boxes until I get control over the North American business cards.
The Binders are usually purchased at the local business supply store and the insert pages that I place in the binders to hold my cards are one type only. The type of insert page that I use are named “Ultimate-Pro Platinum Insert pages” these are most often used for storing baseball and hockey cards but I use them for all of my card storage in the binders.
There are several types of more inexpensive insert sheets that will destroy the raised ink on the business card if you are not careful to choose the protective acid-free types.
In the past I have acquired three or four large collections from other collectors that have stopped collecting altogether. The business card collections I have obtained are all from Oregon, Washington and California. Once they arrived to my house in Southwestern Ontario I have had to remove older business cards from insert pages that were literally destroying the raised ink layers and distorting the colors on the business card. I salvaged most of business cards that I could and placed them in the acid-free “Ultimate-Pro Platinum Insert pages”.
Other collectors use products like “Avery” and other great types of protective pages. I am partial to the “Ultimate-Pro Platinum Insert pages” because they are so readily available in my area. My business card collector friend John Haffner in Indiana has sent me many cases of this product for which I am eternally grateful for.
Each “Ultimate-Pro Platinum Insert page” holds EIGHTEEN business cards.
Since they are made for a larger baseball or hockey cards the odd larger business card will still fit no problem. These “Ultimate-Pro Platinum Insert pages” are the greatest expense in this business card collecting hobby.