Conference school::sports_memorabilia

    John I do them the same way,I've tried other ways of sorting,I find
    that this is the fastest way.Putting them in numerical order makes it
    very easy when your trying to pull certain cards.
    
    John M
    

    
    I use a sorting tray.  It depends on the size of the set.  If the set
    is over 500 cards (I'll explain why 500 in a second), I first break
    down into 100's (1-99, 100-199, ...), then down into 10's (1-9, 10-19,
    ...).
    
    The sorting tray I use has 10 compartments.  If the set has less than
    500 cards, I divide the number by 10 (let's use the 300-card TSC
    set as an example).  This gives me 1-29, 30-59, ... the biggest
    number I do this for is 50's.  It's usually fairly easy to give each
    compartment a "value", and then "count up" (30, 60, 90, 120) until
    I reach a number greater than the number of the card I'm trying to
    place.  Let's say 57.  First compartment; 30.  Second compartment;
    60.  Goes in the second compartment.  This gives me smaller stacks
    to break down after the first pass.  If they're small enough (25-30
    cards), I don't need to break them down any further.  The stack of
    cards will be small enough for my weinie hands to handle.
    
    I usually then break out a set.  Take the first stack, and sift
    through, find a #1, then a #2, then a #3 ... this gives me my
    set.  Then I hand-sort the rest of the stack to begin my doubles.
    If the stacks are small enough, it doesn't take very long.
    
    Of course, if the stacks are greater than 50, I have to break them
    down into 10's first.
    
    And yes John.  Places like Scoreboard have a bunch of high school
    kids sitting around, sorting cards for minimum wage in the back
    room.  I think I'd rather do data entry ...
    
    -rjk

    
    	Basically, I do it the same way John mentioned, except that I break
    	down each pile into halves. For example, I'll take the 1-99 pile
    	and break it down into 2 piles, one pile has 1-59, and the other
    	half has 60-99.
    
    	Then I take each of those piles and break them down to 1-9, 10-19,
    	20-29, etc., that makes it much easier and faster to find the
    	card numbers you are looking for, because you are only dealing
    	with half a range of numbers (1-59) as opposed to a full range or 
    	numbers (1-99), and I also use the sorting tray.
    	
        The last pass, say the 1-9 pile, I also break down into 2 piles,
    	one pile has 1-5, the other 6-9.  Again, you deal with half a
    	range as opposed to a full range.  This may sound like it's more
    	work, but it's actually faster, and easier to locate the cards.
    	                                                               

    
        I take over the kitchen table and seperate into little piles of 10
        while opening a pack at a time. for example if the set has 300 cards 
        I do the piles always in the same order obvioulsy picture side down.
    
        1-9  10-19  20-29  30-39  40-49  50-59  60-69  70-79  80-89  90-99 
    
       100-109  etc.... 
    
        So I would have 3 rows of 10 piles and as I open the packs I could
        easily move from left to right or right to left. I then go through 
        and while sorting into number sequence I build my first set at the
        same time. 
    
    
                       Ron
         

    
    Oh yeah.  The other way I've been sortng lately, is to ...
    
    	- sort each pack as I open it.
    
    	- after each subsequent wax pack is sorted, sort it together
          with the previously opened ones.  although, I usually
          sort three or four packs, then sort those into the bigger
          stack.
    
    This way has been working very fast for me lately ...
    
    -rjk

    re 351.1
    Wholesalers don't sort.  They buy in pre sorted bricks from the
    manufacturer.  Bricks run 500-800 of one card in lots from 500-800
    to 100,000 cards.  For instance a local wholesaler just bought
    27 bricks of 500 of Larry Bird 89-90 Hoops.

    
    Geez, I guess that documentary on ESPN I saw, where they toured
    the ScoreBoard facilities and I saw all those peons sorting cards
    was all wrong then ...
    
    Silly me.
    
    

    
    Oh wait!  I know!
    
    They were creating those wonderful 150-card assortment sets you
    see offered on QVC and HSC.
    
    Silly me.  Sorry Mike.
    
    -rjk

    re. 12
    John,  the practice of printing regular cards in sheets to be cut and 
    sold as bricks stopped in 1984 after Topps sheets with rows of
    Mattingly and Straw were sold.  Obviously with promos and non regular
    issue cards sheets of one player are printed.  
    What do they do with the Michael Smiths?  They package them in
    blister packs with other non stars and flood the stores with them.
    If you were to look a a wholesalers product line you would see
    thousands of one player and nothing else.  It's intuitively
    obvious that the wholesaler didn't open packs.  Somewhere
    between manufacture and the wholesaler other business folks
    skim off the commons at one tenth of a cent apice and turn them
    into profit.
    The folks at scoreboard collate (not decolate) for resale.
    In many cases I wait until the season has ended and product is returned
    to the factory and buy cases by the truckload.  In this case it makes 
    sense to open and sort.  For instance would you buy 400 cases of
    1990-91 Pro set hockey (mixed series 1 and 2) for 3.50 a box?
    Thats 28,000 bucks.  Thats 432,000 cards.  Look in Becketts.  Thats
    600 of each card.
    Mike

>    <<< Note 351.14 by FUTURE::JST_ONGE "John St.Onge USDSL DTN 275-2715" >>>
>
>    people to sort those 400 cases or do you make your kids do it ;-)
>    
>    John

    It goes much faster with Dad and 2 kids!  :-)

Vin

    
    The article said that they have to take the same number of every
    card in the set.  So if they want 500 KG Jr cards, they have to
    take 500 of the other 699 cards in the set too.
    
    The only benefit of this is that the cards are already pre-sorted.
    No having to pull card #whatever out of 500 different sets.  They
    can pull out a block of 500 KG Jr's.  Easier for bulk sales.
    
    Cost is approximately 4� a card, and there are only a finite
    number of these "blocks" available.
    
    Special cards (Heroes, etc.), holograms, and short-prints (SP*)
    cards are not available this way.
    
    -rjk