Took me 45 minutes to find a single back issue in my binders last night

I've been collecting for like 15 years now. Organized everything by publisher then alphabetical. But my old binders from 2010 are a mess. Sloppy labels, some bags have shifted, a few books are just loose. I spent almost an hour digging through four different binders for Secret Wars #8. Found it in the last binder I checked, sandwiched between two copies of some Spider-Man annual. Totally my fault for not staying on top of the system. Now I'm thinking of switching to numbered boxes instead. Has anyone else hit that wall where their old filing method just stops working?

3 comments

3 Comments

seanlee16d ago

I feel this so hard. I had a similar moment about six months ago when I was hunting for Amazing Spider-Man #300. I spent almost 50 minutes flipping through my long boxes because my labels from 2015 were completely faded and half the comics had shifted over time. It drives me nuts when the system you thought was foolproof just falls apart. I ended up switching to a numbered box system with a spreadsheet on my phone, and it's been a game changer so far. Your mileage may vary but I think it might be worth trying if you're fed up with the binder shuffle. Just keep in mind you'll have to actually type everything out at first which takes a whole afternoon.

jamie_white15d ago

Man that is exactly what happened to me with my X-Men run. I had Uncanny X-Men all sorted alphabetically by issue number in those old cardboard boxes from the 90s, and when I went looking for issue 137 last year the labels had basically turned into white smudges. I pulled out like three boxes before I found it and by then I was so frustrated I almost just threw the whole collection in the trash. Your spreadsheet idea is genius though, I started doing something similar but I use a Google doc with checkboxes so I can mark what I've read versus what I'm still hunting for at cons. It took me like four hours to type everything in but now I can find any book in under a minute, totally worth the headache upfront.

elizabethhayes16d ago

Read a blog post about using comic book price guides as dividers. Clever idea.