Using Rare Cards

[G. Moto]

    Hello MTG community, this is your planeswalking Vamp pal G. Moto. I recently finished organizing all of my rare cards and put them in my collector's album (the thing weighs as much as a dictionary), and a thought came across my mind; Why do people use their rare cards instead of saving them in a trade binder? I mean some people have multiple decks that they sleeve so I guess this offers adequate protection but it really makes me wonder the merit of having an all rare deck simply to have one. I know I have different styles as far as deck building goes (I currently play 3 different TCG games) but I am curious as to what your ideas are. How do you ladies and gentlemen feel about the use and preferred methods of extending the longevity of your cards?

[WWolfe]

I double sleeve all cards that are in decks. Money cards (worth $3 or more) are sleeved and are in a trade binder or a keep binder.

My bulk cards are grouped by card alphabetically in hinged polystyrene cases that you can get pretty cheap on line in storage boxes.

[G. Moto]

Now that's a lot of protection. Good to know that your cards will be sitting safe for a while.

[Drunk Cynic]

Cards are either in 9 slot sheets, play set or less, or in card sleeves to be played. I buy the cards to play with them, with a side shot of collecting them. While resale is a consideration, it isn't a primary concern; don't tell the wife though.

[G. Moto]

As long as she's not on deckstats.net you're good man.

[Audit]

Decks are double sleeved. Rares and Uncommons are in binders with 9 slot sheets. Commons are in fat pack boxes. Everything is organized by color.

[G. Moto]

 If I had all my uncommons in binders I'd probably need another binder. I'm hearing you guys "double sleeve" your cards a lot, is this a trend you learned or did somebody show you how to do it after a while?

[ladof]

Decks are sleeved or don't have any cards valuable enough to sleeve. (Not double, never even thought about that.) All Rares and mythic that aren't in decks are in a binder with more valuable ones doubled (particularly foils; sometimes the foiling gets damaged in the 9 pockets). Commons and uncommons from modern on are sorted by set, then alphabetically with uncommons in front (the last few sets are in individual fat packs, the rest are in the five row box.) Legacy cards are sorted by color, but are just in fat pack boxes. I don't have any good legacy non-rares, so they never get used aND aren't a high priority.

[Frimmel]

Cards are either in 9 slot sheets, play set or less, or in card sleeves to be played. I buy the cards to play with them, with a side shot of collecting them. While resale is a consideration, it isn't a primary concern; don't tell the wife though.

This. Less having to answer to a wife.

[G. Moto]

    I feel like if some of the ladies in our lives had a better understanding of how and why we play then they'd see the merit of what we do. 

[GeekMagicWarp]

Decks are double sleeved. Rares and Uncommons are in binders with 9 slot sheets. Commons are in fat pack boxes. Everything is organized by color.

I've seen double sleeved alot at my LGS, people there tend to play with hundreds of dollars in lands not to mention whatever is in their decks. Me personally I don't even have all my decks single sleeved yet but eventually would like to double sleeve for extra protection. They use a special sleeve called (or at least they call?) an exact fit. As the name implies it fits very very tight (almost too tight imo) onto the card so that it can then fit into an Ultra-Pro or Dragon Shield or whatever your choice of sleeves may be.

[G. Moto]

    I have some sleeves but not enough for every singe deck that I own. Also i do the table shuffle but my usual shuffling method gets stifled a bit when you have new sleeves on your cards. But most of my decks are commons/uncommons so sleeves are not much of a top priority for me. I usually keep my cards in 800 count boxes so I don't have to worry about decks getting misplaced so easily. Also they're good for storage and transport.

[Siryphen]

I collect full sets. I have from the very beginning. Well, My Beginning which was Unlimited up to Prophecy. I Stopped collecting and only bought cards I really liked until Innistrad. Since then I've been collecting full sets again. I only play with cards I don't really care about with single sleeves. I usually trade in anything I cant see myself playing as soon as I open it from a booster. I do however have a Kaalia of the Vast EDH deck that is valued at around $5000. it contains mostly foils and 12 Expedition lands as well as 3 Beta Dual Lands (The list is on my page). It also has Foil Kaalia Sleeves and a Kaalia Printed Commander sized deck box. I have it Triple Sleeved but I found that it is hard to play with that way because air will get into it after each game and it needs flattened out, Which causes it to stick together.. it's actually a huge pain! But it's worth it.   

[G. Moto]

Wow, talking about money in the bank. I've still got a Promo Drana's Chosen that I received at the Oath of the Gatewatch pre-release in its original packaging (I have yet to open it). It's a good card, it looks nice and I feel that it may go up in price once the Zendikar block falls out of rotation in the future.

[Kane_]

I'm rather new (most a come back after years than a fresh new player), so... Currently, I have everything sorted by color and rarity in already full 9x 1k cards box (one for each color, on artifacts, on multicolor, one for the lands and the latest for pre-modern cards).

I mostly plan to sort them all, pack the one I don't see using one day and give them to new players, after that they will all go to double sleeve. I just have 3 binders, one for the planeswalkers, one tiny for the gods and the latest for all the commanders. That's the only collecting part I have, out of that, I mostly plan to put all the cards in playable deck or the cubes I work on, ideally I want a collection of deck with enough variety in them that I can use them to teach / play with friends at will even if they don't have cards.
(in that, the most expensive part is the sleeving... That's depressing  )

And finally, for the most expensives cards that I don't see use for playing, they usually go from the classic booster, to sleeve, to selling/trading site to shipping.