Quick, easy, cheap card organising. Any tips? – OnTableTop – Home of Beasts of War

Quick, easy, cheap card organising. Any tips?

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This topic contains 9 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by darkvoivod 3 years, 1 month ago.

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October 21, 2021 at 9:13 am #1688092

darkvoivod
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I have quite a bit of games with hundreds of cards. All of these need to be arranged in several stack before play and returned to the box after play.
Now, for some reason, boardgame manufacturers tend to make these nice, vacuumformed inserts which are all but useless once you start punching out the tokens and want to sort your game, often leaving huge ammonts of space simply unused.

So in the past, I have made some organisers for cards and tokens from foamcore. It allows me to get the games set up way quicker and has everything nice and organised. Not the most pretty solution, which is a bit of an issue as well.
But this takes a lot of my hobby time. Time I’d rather spend on painting mini’s and building terrain.
Some manufacturers seem to make lovely inserts, but mostly for not so lovely prives and I seem to find game specific only.

How do others solve this? Anyone know cheap alternatives ?(I’m based in the EU).
I’d even settle for some templates at this point so I won’t have to spend hours measuring and then find out I made a mistake.

Tips on token organising are just as welkom, though I am able to find some boxes I can use for that every once in a while.

October 21, 2021 at 11:17 am #1688176

kiranamida
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It tends to be for the more widely known games but Battlefoam do inserts for a number of board games, often designed to fit inside the box as well (warning, some of them make the box a little taller in order to fit the insert, it that matters). Sadly they don’t really have a section for all of these so best to go through either https://uk.battlefoam.com/shop-by-game/ for specific games or https://uk.battlefoam.com/card-games/ for their more generic trays for card and accessories.

October 21, 2021 at 1:47 pm #1688180

jamescutts
6925xp

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Business card boxes have all sorts of good uses, usually free or very cheap and come in a few different sizes.

October 21, 2021 at 7:04 pm #1688197

darkvoivod
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Oh, those buseness card boxes look like they might fit the bill.
Seems there’s even a gamestore in the Netherlands that sells them for that purpose.
Might see if I can source them a bit cheaper still, but I think we may have a winner.

October 26, 2021 at 2:20 am #1689107

ced1106
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6224xp

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The inserts are only there to protect contents during shipping. I agree that they’re pretty useless, especially FFG ones, which are pretty much a flat sheet of cardboard folded to make two trays and something to take up space. You may be more careful than myself, but I’ll cut and tape the seams of the insert to make three trays (flip the middle part to make a tray), then use ponytail bands to hold the cards. Regular rubber bands oxidize and thus can damage the cards. Throw everything in the box. If there are mini’s, keep ’em in the box in bags until painted, then use plano boxes to store. I also use index cards as card dividers, if the box has a card-sized tray.

October 26, 2021 at 7:50 am #1689109

sundancer
42980xp

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Feldherr does an extensive range on foam inserts for bordgames. Yes, they are not the cheapest but they make life more easy.

https://www.feldherr.net/

And they list the inserts by game. So if there is any one game you would like to have more then just a card box in, that’s the way to go.

October 26, 2021 at 11:51 am #1689187

darkvoivod
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@sundancer, yeah, I’m looking for cheaper options as I want multiple games to be nice and organised. The idea is to make the games as easy to set up as possible. Some games have a lot of decks. And I have a lot of games.

@ced1106, that’s sounds like heresy to me. 😀
I really can’t. To each his own, but that would be a nightmare to me. Nice touch on using hairband. Was never aware of the bad effect of normal rubber bands. Not sure if that information will ever be useful, but at least I have it now.

October 26, 2021 at 1:54 pm #1689201

schnitzel
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945xp

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the walking dead – all out war by mantic does not have anything to store things properly, so I used index card boxes (A6) and some standart card holders from “UP”. The tricky thing is that you dont play wit all cards. to find each faction, expansion and special cards I labeled everything in the compartments.

October 26, 2021 at 2:26 pm #1689229

sundancer
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Not perfect but gets the job done.

October 26, 2021 at 3:02 pm #1689234

darkvoivod
7112xp

1

It looks nice, though. But it’s not all that cheap for multiple games.
The businness card solution still looks like the clear winner. Several game shops seem to sell them for this express purpose it seems and I should be able to get by with one box/game.

Thanks for the input people, but I think I know what I want now.
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