This is something I've been wanting to do for a while. I just have stacks of cards sitting around and I wanted to keep them more organized. I converted a Pelican case to store cards, but it's difficult to flip through and see the cards. Enter the binder.
My experience with binders from literally 25 years ago was that cards would get all screwed up. They would get bent. Or the rings would make indentations in them. It was bad. I've always kept my cards in boxes.
Over the years, they started making binders that have no rings. They are more like old CD cases, with individual lined pockets for the cards welded to a stiff cover. It looks like this inside.
The one downside I've read about binders like this is that they don't stay closed or lay flat. To counteract this, the manufacturer added a strap (or band) that keeps it closed. Here's a picture of it with the binder empty.
The strap is tight and keeps the binder closed. That's good. But there's a concern that when the binder is full of cards, the tight strap will bend the cards along the edges. There's probably some truth to this. Since I'm not using the binders to transport cards, only to organize and store them, I'm not using the straps to keep the binders closed.
But here's what it looks like with with a full binder. It doesn't look as extreme as I've seen in other pictures. You could probably stretch out the band and still use it to keep the binder closed without bending the cards.
Loading the binder is simple. The pockets are open on the sides (not the top) and are open to the "middle" of the page. In other words, cards on the left load from the right and cards on the right load from the left. Got it? Okay.
I am using 4-pocket binders because I mostly have play sets of four cards, I think it looks neat like this, and the smaller binders fit in my storage system.
It was relatively quick to organize my Old School cards into the binders. The binders hold 160 cards each and I only have about 400 cards in my Old School collection, so three binders did the trick with room to spare. One of the things I like about the Old School format is that I can have a focused collection. If you have a larger collection, I could see the benefit of getting one binder for each color plus one for lands and one for artifacts.
When the binder is full, it's full. You could technically fit more than one card in a single (individual) pocket, but I don't think the binder would even close if you loaded it up that way. All of my cards are double-sleeved and there's plenty of room in each pocket.
The build quality seems fine. The price is good. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. Watch out for the tight strap if you think it will bend your cards. Flipping through it feels like looking through a spell book. :)
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