Collection Organization Tips 7 7

[the blob]

I know the answer is "get rid of 3/4 of it," but before then I need to get it better organized.  I have posted pictures of my comic room here before, some of you were horrified, I will not post them again. Needless to say, stacks and shelves of boxes, many unsorted. Probably last time my collection was organized was in the late 90s when it was about 1/5 - 1/4 as big. I have done a few things like set up some long boxes for spiderman and batman titles, DC War, disney/cartoon books, so many of those are set aside, etc. The problem with sorting as I see it is that there are hundreds of titles. I don't have the room to unbox them and put them in stacks on the table by title. I was thinking of just pulling all the marvel first (my main focus), then DC, and then the other companies. While there are still many marvel titles, it will be a little easier. I am a little cramped for space in my comic cave, so I have a limited ability to spread out. Basically I have a 6-8 person dining room table up there I can sort on.

And it will give me a further opportunity to pull out stuff that should be yard-saled or donated.

Has anyone undergone a massive (20-30K+ books) organization/sort like this in their home (hence limited space) and how did you approach it?

[01TheDude]

is the stuff that was organized in the late 90s still in the same organized condition? I would start by separating those ones out first and then use it as the base to meld the rest of your books the same type of organization you apparently like at that point.

You might want to try getting a few more boxes and use them as sort bins to cull out by publisher, adding books to your previous piles as you go.

It sounds like an incredible amount of work. Why did you stop keeping stuff sorted?

[the blob]

1 minute ago, 01TheDude said:

is the stuff that was organized in the late 90s still in the same organized condition? I would start by separating those ones out first and then use it as the base to meld the rest of your books the same type of organization you apparently like at that point.

You might want to try getting a few more boxes and use them as sort bins to cull out by publisher, adding books to your previous piles as you go.

It sounds like an incredible amount of work. Why did you stop keeping stuff sorted?

Because, as my wife will remind me daily, I am lazy. I will tell you I have a lot of other going on. I basically stopped organizing them once I became involved with my wonderful wife in 2000. She is very distracting. But yes, it should have been automatic. Every time I fill up a short box with new stuff it needs to get filed away. 

But yes, the old organized stuff will serve as the base for the new stuff. I am thinking I separate marvel from everything else. those tend to be the ones I look for most anyway. And then sort them. I probably need to buy like 1,000 bags and boards too.

[OrangeCrush]

1 hour ago, the blob said:

I know the answer is "get rid of 3/4 of it," but before then I need to get it better organized.  I have posted pictures of my comic room here before, some of you were horrified, I will not post them again. Needless to say, stacks and shelves of boxes, many unsorted. Probably last time my collection was organized was in the late 90s when it was about 1/5 - 1/4 as big. I have done a few things like set up some long boxes for spiderman and batman titles, DC War, disney/cartoon books, so many of those are set aside, etc. The problem with sorting as I see it is that there are hundreds of titles. I don't have the room to unbox them and put them in stacks on the table by title. I was thinking of just pulling all the marvel first (my main focus), then DC, and then the other companies. While there are still many marvel titles, it will be a little easier. I am a little cramped for space in my comic cave, so I have a limited ability to spread out. Basically I have a 6-8 person dining room table up there I can sort on.

And it will give me a further opportunity to pull out stuff that should be yard-saled or donated.

Has anyone undergone a massive (20-30K+ books) organization/sort like this in their home (hence limited space) and how did you approach it?

Yeah, I have been exactly where you are right now. First off I purchased a crapload of BCW's comic dividers. Here is what they look like in case yo havent seen them before:

I then ordered 10 new Drawerboxes with box sort rails. The box sort rails are KEY as they allow you to create multiple sections in each box without having to worry about the comics falling over. At that point I figured out exactly how I wanted to organize my comics. For example, some I wanted sorted by runs and others I wanted to sort by artist. Once done creating the initial categories I was going to work on with the first 10 boxes, I started taking out my comic boxes one by one looking for comics that met the categories I had created with the first 10 boxes. Some boxes I would only wind up pulling out 25-35% of the comics. I combined the unsorted comics into full boxes as I went along and simply put them aside. I did this until I had gone through all of my boxes and filled all of the initial categories I had created with those initial 10 boxes. Since I combined the unsorted comics into full boxes, you basically wind up with a bunch of empty boxes again when your done filling those initial boxes. At that point you basically just rinse and repeat. I then created new categories for the new empty boxes and went through each of my unsorted comics boxes again. I just did that over and over until I was done. It definitely took some time. All in all it took me about a week to finish, but it was definitely worth the effort as most of my comics were incredibly disorganized. 

That is really the best method I could come up with and it really did wind up working out really well. Its definitely a slower process than organizing them all at once as you wind up going through many of the boxes time and time again, but it really helps limit the amount of space needed to organize a large collection and I didn't have the kind of space required to organize them all at the same time. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by OrangeCrush

[01TheDude]

1 minute ago, the blob said:

Because, as my wife will remind me daily, I am lazy. I will tell you I have a lot of other going on. I basically stopped organizing them once I became involved with my wonderful wife in 2000. She is very distracting. But yes, it should have been automatic. Every time I fill up a short box with new stuff it needs to get filed away. 

But yes, the old organized stuff will serve as the base for the new stuff. I am thinking I separate marvel from everything else. those tend to be the ones I look for most anyway. And then sort them. I probably need to buy like 1,000 bags and boards too.

have you bothered entering the collection on one of the on line collection sites? I use comic book realm but there are lots of others. I say this because when I got back into the hobby I found I needed this. While I did have my older systems (the first being by hand with lists, the second using some software (late 1980s)-- the hobby had changed enough and these old systems were clunky at best. So while do a new round of organizing and re-bagging,  I also entered the books to the on line site. I included stuff like notes of something interesting or damage.  also re-evaluated my grades with fresh eyes (and more realistic/educated ones). After that enormous (to me) task was done, I continued to enter the books that I picked up after the fact using the same regimen. I do still let the books accumulate to about a short box size but then put them into the rest of the collection. I also started entering the dates I acquired the book, from where, and the true cost.

Now I understand with a collection your size, this level of detail might be unrealistic. I am dealing with a little less than 2000 books myself-- a minor fraction of what you have to deal with. But perhaps in your case, you could treat it like people do when they are going through their closets -- a pile for good will, a pile to sell, and a pile to keep. Then just do the file creation of the pile you want to keep. Or set up two accounts and have one for keepers, one for sales-- just so you have a handy reference.

Good luck either way-- I cannot imagine having that many comics.

[the blob]

Those dividers look interesting.

No, no database. When I get things organized I could probably get my son to do that but by bit.

I did not accumulate that much as a kid, but in the 25 or so years since I got back into collecting as an adult I have done a lot of bargain bin diving (and some more selected buying, but those don't fill up lots of boxes).  It has not helped having a comic shop 2 blocks from my office that has a decent selection of cheap-o books.

 

Edited February 9, 2018 by the blob

[01TheDude]

one other thought -- with a collection that size, you might want to enlist some others to help you organize. I'm talking about some other boardies that might live in your area who you can trust or maybe even friends you have who understand the hobby. That might serve several purposes--- a quicker resolution to the organization AND possibly some fun with other comic loving enthusiasts. If you lived near me-- I might be game to come over one night a week to lend a hand sorting or whatever. I imagine others here might be interested as well. Might not be a good fit for you but thought I would suggest it.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

1 hour ago, the blob said:

I have posted pictures of my comic room here before, some of you were horrified, I will not post them again.

I don't think I've ever seen those pictures.  Feel free to post them again.

[classicaaron]

I have just over 15k comics and have everything organized alphabetically or by run.  basically just make a pile of each alphabetical letter.  once you have that done start alphabetizing that particular letter to get them in order.  if you end up with a full box of one particular book put them into their own run box. 

for example sort into 26 piles A to Z.  start sorting A, realize I have two short  boxes of avengers put them into their own run box.  anything less than a short box full goes into the alphabetized section.

doing this I can find any book I have out of the 15K within two minutes.

[Alf Pogs]

I am Marvel/DC/Independents in short boxes on metal racks. Then just a rough break down is good enough for me. Lois Lane, Superboy and Superman etc all squished in. Batman, Harley Quinn, Gotham City Sirens, etc... I also have "must sell" stacks, "must slab" stacks.... "give these away" stacks. I'll try to put up pics on Monday.

[Transplant]

2 hours ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I don't think I've ever seen those pictures.  Feel free to post them again.

Or don't.  This forum can only handle so many "woe is me" posts before malfunctioning.

[shadroch]

Phase 1- Three piles- Marvel, DC, other.

Phase 2- Marvel only.   SA,BA, CA, Other piles.

Phase 3- BA books split. 25 cents and under, 30-50cent books. Put aside Spidey, Xen and anything over $20-$25.

Phase 4- Other Marvels- I divide them by year, pre-2000,post 2000.   Put all mutant titles in a pile.

Phase 5- 8 Repeat with DC books.

Go from there.

[tv horror]

5 hours ago, classicaaron said:

I have just over 15k comics and have everything organized alphabetically or by run.  basically just make a pile of each alphabetical letter.  once you have that done start alphabetizing that particular letter to get them in order.  if you end up with a full box of one particular book put them into their own run box. 

for example sort into 26 piles A to Z.  start sorting A, realize I have two short  boxes of avengers put them into their own run box.  anything less than a short box full goes into the alphabetized section.

doing this I can find any book I have out of the 15K within two minutes.

I hate you! 

[Whizzer]

8 hours ago, shadroch said:

Phase 1- Three piles- Marvel, DC, other.

Phase 2- Marvel only.   SA,BA, CA, Other piles.

Phase 3- BA books split. 25 cents and under, 30-50cent books. Put aside Spidey, Xen and anything over $20-$25.

Phase 4- Other Marvels- I divide them by year, pre-2000,post 2000.   Put all mutant titles in a pile.

Phase 5- 8 Repeat with DC books.

Go from there.

This is what I did late last year.  The only difference being that my Phase 2 was - All 'vintage' books (1940's to 1999) together and then 'modern' books (2000 up).  I re-bagged, boarded,boxed and catalogued as I went.  It's daunting, time consuming, tiring and frustrating as hell but very satisfying when done.  I just need to stay on top of it now   

[marvelmaniac]

I have no real advice other than... 

I have OCD and I can tell you that this would never happen or I would not be able to sleep at night or focus on anything else during the day.    

Unfortunately OCD is Genetic/Environmental and not contagious but if you have a friend with OCD and offer a deal/payment this may get fixed in a hurry. 

Do you watch Big Bang Theory?

Remember when Sheldon organized Howard's closet???    

[tv horror]

I once asked my nephew to help me with my Spider-man collection without knowing he must have been borderline autistic, a few hours later I came home and he had rearranged all the titles by date that's Amazing, Web, Spectacular and all the related titles. I was impressed as it made it so much easier to read the tie in titles, that was instead of me getting one comic from the Amazing line and one from another.    

[FineCollector]

I'm not a fan of organizing by era.  More delineations makes things harder to deal with.  It's easier to find one spot for "Showcase" than a spot for S.A. Showcase, and another spot for Showcase '93-'96.

I wouldn't touch the sorted boxes right now.  Sorting is a chore, but integrating is far worse.  You have to know how much of everything you have before knowing how much space to commit to it, so sort first.

I agree with multiple rounds of sorting, you won't be able to sort alphabetically right away.  Buy 5 new long boxes to start.  Decide on four major categories that you know you have several long boxes of, and seperate those out right away.  Superman?  X-Men and related?  Image?  Indy?  War?  Label them in pencil once they're filled, and set them aside.  The 5th new box is the purge box.  As you go through the unsorted boxes, anything that doesn't come out gets condensed, labelled with what's mostly inside, and goes through another cycle later.  Don't worry about "darn, I had another stack of Thors that I should put together with this one," that can be on the second go around.

[spreads]

I think sorting by title, especially when you have big runs of books makes sense.  When I have a dedicated box, I usually have a picture (sometimes I take a cover from a beater comic, 'Daredevil', and package tape over it) to serve as a label.  I also have the keys in their own shortbox (identified as such), you can do that for a theme-box (golden, horror, magazine, etc.).

[Bird]

Going through each box multiple times is my idea of hell. Organize each box alphabetically. Then consolidate 2 or 3 boxes at a time. Rinse and repeat. You cannot do it all at once and going through every box each time you sort is not very efficient. Put a small post it note on the box if you want to remind yourself of anything.

[oakman29]

2 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

I have no real advice other than... 

I have OCD and I can tell you that this would never happen or I would not be able to sleep at night or focus on anything else during the day.    

Unfortunately OCD is Genetic/Environmental and not contagious but if you have a friend with OCD and offer a deal/payment this may get fixed in a hurry. 

Do you watch Big Bang Theory?

Remember when Sheldon organized Howard's closet???    

You just described me in a nutshell.  My comics are so organized I can go to any book without any hesitation. 

OCD is a pain in the arse , wife has a love\hate thing about it. My boss loves it!