Jill was excited to spend her Saturday organizing her large collection of baseball cards. She had been collecting cards for years and had amassed a variety of cards from many different seasons and players. They were all mixed together in disarray in a big plastic bin she kept under her bed. Jill decided it was time to properly arrange them so she could more easily find the cards she wanted.
She started by emptying the entire contents of the plastic bin out onto her bedroom floor. There must have been well over a thousand cards that came pouring out. Jill was amazed at how large her collection had become without her even realizing it. The first task was to go through each individual card and ensure none were stuck together or damaged in any way from being haphazardly stored. This took Jill a couple hours to thoroughly inspect each one.
Once she was confident all the cards were in good condition, Jill’s next task was to categorize them. She decided the best way would be to sort them by the player’s team first, and then further organize them by the player’s name within each team section. Jill rummaged through and started making piles of all the cards from the same franchise. The New York Yankees stack grew very high as they always seemed to be one of the most popular teams for collectors. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox piles were also quite large given those franchises’ long histories of success.
As she was shuffling through, Jill came across some very interesting and rare finds mixed in with her more common cards. She pulled out a 1909 Honus Wagner T206 card, considered one of the most coveted in the hobby. She could hardly believe her eyes, as that single card alone could be worth tens of thousands of dollars in mint condition. Next to it, she found a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card. Even in worn status that card still held significant value. Further into her sifting, a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth appeared. With wide eyes, Jill marveled that she owned such historical pieces of baseball history seemingly without even realizing it until now. Those would surely need to be stored even more securely.
After spending the majority of her Saturday morning and early afternoon sorting through her massive collection, Jill finally had everything grouped by team and player name within each franchise stack. It filled up most of her bedroom floor with small mountains of cardboard. Now came the final and most satisfying part – properly shelving and displaying her collection.
Under her bed, Jill had four tall plastic shelves perfect for organizing her baseball cards vertically. She estimated the shelving space could accommodate four rows of cards standing upright per shelf. She would need all four shelves to house her entire organized collection. Jill started filling the first row, carefully sliding each team stack in alphabetical order from left to right. The second and third rows filled up swiftly as well. By the late afternoon, Jill had proudly completed arranging all four rows across the four shelves with her collection.
Stepping back to admire her hard work, Jill was thrilled with the end result. All of her cards were neatly lined up in an organized and easy to browse fashion. No longer would she have to rummage through a disheveled mess just to find a particular player. Now they were meticulously stored and readily accessible. Her prized vintage cards like the Wagner, Mantle and Ruth were safely nestled separately for proper preservation as well. Jill couldn’t wait to show off the newly shelved display to her friends and family who also knew of, and added to, her lifelong baseball card collecting hobby. She was already dreaming of what cards she might add to her impressive assortment next. For now though, Jill was satisfied taking in the fruits of her laborious Saturday spent getting her treasured baseball cards perfectly arranged in tidy four rows.
