Shelved project: What could have been...

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

A while back I had a lot of boosters stored in shoe boxes. This is less than ideal, every time I went to look for one I had to pull them all out. They don't stack too well so they would generally fall over and begin to look a little scuffed and ragged.

To protect them all I started bagging them in clear polypropylene bags and sticking tape. This is fiddly, takes ages and sticky tape and collectibles are never a great mix.

So I was looking around for a better idea and I figured that a rigid plastic clamshell would do the trick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamshell_%28container%29

Unfortunately, although you can buy many shapes and sizes off the shelf, booster pack size is not one of them. However most companies will manufacture them to your specifications if you ask them nicely, and pay them a lot of money.

So I got in touch with the nearest company...

Off-the-shelf clam shells of a similar size cost about 30 cents each, which was encouraging.

So I sent in a request for more info...

Custom vacuum forming mould = $3400-$3800 approx
Die cutting knife = $220- $380

So I bought some more bags and sticky tape.

But it got me to thinking, if I did go ahead, it would have to be right first time, so what features would make the ideal clamshell?

I came up with a few

Obviously archival plastic; clear, colourless, no softner
rigid, so it will support its own weight and could be used as a mailer
Space to add information about the booster, e.g. Expansion / year / language etc.
Sized to fit 6 card to 15 cards and possibly demo boosters?

I came up with this



the clamshell splits open down the middle, hinged bit is down the bottom on the right. The booster sits in the middle and there is space either end for the sealed ends. At the top left is a place where a piece of paper with all the info can be inserted.

I can already see a few issues, Japanese boosters on the hangers wouldn't fit and thinner boosters would rattle around.

Anyway I thought I would get some input from any bored forum members with too much time on their hands, just in case I get really sick of bagging my spares.

So I would like to know things like, should it have a hole for hanging them up, would they make good mailers, how big should the space be for the information, what features should be included? I figure that there are enough companies out there servicing the collectables market that if I came to them with a design that was good enough, they might just take it on.

In particular I remember seeing a graded booster by one of the big companies, it was graded as mint but it was crammed into a holder too small for it and the sealed edges were folded back to make it fit, no way was I going to buy it.

I also had a problem, I have a sealed box of revised and I wanted one booster to put in an album. I knew that as soon as I openned the box and took out the booster I needed, the value of the remaining boosters would plummet, everyone would assume they had been searched.

However, if the box was opened by a trusted name in Magic, or by a third party, like the graders, and each booster was taken out and sealed into a tamper-proof holder then each booster would retain its value as it could be sold as a "certified unsearched by x".

This could also be used for sealed boxes which have been mapped. As there is no requirement for grading the fee would be fairly low.

Probably not worth it for a Saviours of Kamigawa box but if you had a sealed Unlimited box and no one could afford to buy the whole thing it might be worth trying to sell them individualy, however who would believe you hadn't searched it?

Anyway, I would welcome any comments, hints, tips, idle musings or ideas on this. (with the exception of the drawing, it took me 10 minutes to draw it on paper, it took over a week to work out how to do the same thing on Google Sketch Up, and it looks no better!)

Cheers

Mark

[CHaPuZaS]

I'm impressed by your design!

I'd mostly be worried about the weight of it, and the way to make it standard enough for the different Boosters:

- Demo Packs
- 6 Card Packs
- Long Japanese Sleeves
- Modern/Regular Boosters
- Long Boosters (Such as Homelands)

Keep up that good work!

[Hayden]

Very impressive Mark, and that dwgs is excellent. I thought it was in AutoCAD at first =D>

I was trying to find a photo I thought I had saved of a PSA (or was it BGS) graded Beta booster pack. As I thought that might help you.

You could also try (although it may make it more complicated) what comic grading uses ... comic book is sealed inside a "holder" that pretty much secures the book and keeps it from flopping around. Then this holder case is placed inside a more rigid case much like our beloved PSA/BGS cases with label and all. Google any comic book and add CGC to it and you will get a bunch of images that should show what I mean.

In any event great idea and good luck.

[dry cereal]

have you considered just coating the whole thing in resin? Then you could make furniture! :)

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

have you considered just coating the whole thing in resin? Then you could make furniture! :)

Sealing them in an acrylic block did occur to me, I once saw a Black Lotus like this! It was used as a trophy for a local tournament, fortunately it was a screw down job with 3 layers so you could disasemble it and retrieve the card.

(I was offered it for £150 but turned it down because it was too expensive...)

I was also considering getting some perspex and sandwiching the booster in between a few sheets (the middle layer would have a cut out for the booster and could of course be various thicknesses to accommodate different types of boosters.

The only thing stopping me was finding a way to put in a screw thread into the perspex (and how thick it would get in order to hold together, you would need more than one turn of the screw to hold it together but maybe a different fastner would do the trick.)

I think they would be great for storing the boosters, until they got too scratched, but I figured way too heavy for mailers!

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

I was trying to find a photo I thought I had saved of a PSA (or was it BGS) graded Beta booster pack. As I thought that might help you.

I think it was one of those companies which put me off, one of the other members told me the case was designed for grading old wax packs which is why they did not fit.

You could also try (although it may make it more complicated) what comic grading uses ... comic book is sealed inside a "holder" that pretty much secures the book and keeps it from flopping around. Then this holder case is placed inside a more rigid case much like our beloved PSA/BGS cases with label and all. Google any comic book and add CGC to it and you will get a bunch of images that should show what I mean.

In any event great idea and good luck.

Coins also have something similar, there is a standard sized capsule and then different sized rings which fit inside the capsule and fit the coin exactly, this hold the coins in place. the only problem is that it only works on the diameter, and not the thickness of the coin. With boosters it is going to be the thickness which is the pain and anything done to pad out the thinner boosters would need to be transparent so you could still see the details.

I will look at the comics though, I read an article about an independant comic book store who did their own grading and they were talking about the process they underwent before coming to their final design.

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

I'm impressed by your design!

I'd mostly be worried about the weight of it, and the way to make it standard enough for the different Boosters:

- Demo Packs
- 6 Card Packs
- Long Japanese Sleeves
- Modern/Regular Boosters
- Long Boosters (Such as Homelands)

I think any design that needs to fit all sizes is going to have to be a bit of a compromise.

I personally would not want the packaging to be pressing against the booster because any contact could cause scuffing if it wasn't an exact fit.

Any looseness will cause the booster to rattle around inside.

Only making the most common sizes means that sections of your collection are in a different storage system as the majority. So that would be annoying too.

The plastics in most of the clam shells is very thin and lightweight, the rigidity is added by putting ridges along the outside of the clamshell to give it structural strength and they also act as part of the fastening system, (However I have yet to work out how to do ridges in Google Sketch Up)

[mystical_tutor]

Probably you have already done this but I would be inclined to contact Ultra-Pro to see if they have ever considered such. I doubt that they would seriously consider manufacturing such for sale as the markent probably does not meet their business model. However, they may have at least considered such and might share their design ideas with you. They did that for me with sealable 9 pocked binder pages (the design had some problems, I told them so, never heard anything more about it).

Just a thought.

Gary

[GlobalBoosterHunter]

Funnily enough I did, before I looked at designing my own, I have been in contact with them via their websites, but they never responded, which I took to be a 'No'

There is another company I like the look of, seems like they manufacture their own product lines, they do a clamshell for Star Wars figures still in their packs, and the little stamds for the figures, website isn't too flash, which makes me think they spend more on the products than on marketing, which is a good thing.

I just wanted to approach them with a 'user designed' end product and see if they wanted to take it over. (I have lots of sealed boosters from various games and hobbies, can't box 'em all myself!)

[mystical_tutor]

For the VERY brief time that I considered collecting boosters I just folded the sealed part and stuck them in the top row of my 9-hole binder page (of course English only). I went from full boosters to just wrappers to empty spaces.

It was too hard to keep them sealed in sets where I was missing a couple rare cards to finish the set.... LOL

Of course I still have Fallen empires, Homelands and I think Ice Age.

Gary