Topic: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Just found this site last night, been working for several hours now and have barely made a dent in my collection. Got all my rares, lands, artifacts, and multicolored cards done, just finished the uncommons in my white cards and still have stacks as large as my hand to go through for all of the colors.

So yeah, I've been wondering, just how long did it take the rest of you to catalog your cards?

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

It took me two afternoons. Roughly. I mean I wasn't working full time on it, but it took me about 2 afternoons to do 2000 cards, although I was also separating them and organising by names, colours and mana costs at the same time.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I'm currently only separating out by names and color (rares have already had this done), but I suppose after I get everything cataloged I'll be adding in type and rarity for the commons and uncommons as well.

Almost 800 cards into my collection, I'm half dreading finding out how many I've collected over the years be it from the ones my middle school boyfriend gave to start me off to the ones I've purchased last saturday. My first purchase in 4 years! Been playing since around '02/03 but since 06 haven't had anyone to play with til recently.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Weeks upon weeks.  I have 10,000+ cards cataloged, and I'm still not even close to done.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

To be fair though, I might have to go through the whole process again soon enough as I have recently bought and won a fair amount of cards and not updated my profile here, therefore have no idea what is up to date and what isn't. Whoops.

On saying that though, my collection is only about 2,000 cards at the most, and maybe 1,600 when all the lands are taken out.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Yeah I do this every time I buy new cards, last time I bought them I never finished though and everything was all out of sorts. Kind of why I'm doing it now I suppose. Found a few gems I wasn't aware of in the process though lol. The things you forget you have when you don't pay attention.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

My initial entry was a few thousand cards, and I did it late evenings and on some weekend days over a few weeks.  I was already pretty anal, though, and had most of the cards sorted and boxed before I started entering them.

Last summer, I more than doubled my collection (picking up bulk commons and uncommons, and also getting into collecting the current sets).  More evening and weekend time.

Since then, I've been pretty religious about entering my cards right away--usually within 48 hours.  I have one page in my trade binder for inbound cards, and I either write a list (large trades) or snap a photo (small trades) so I can adjust my inventory.  I picked up so many over the holidays that I got a bit behind, but I'm back on top of it now.  I have about a dozen cards to add (including three Goblin Sharpshooter--Yippie!) from the last two days.

I have over 11k cards in the system, and anticipate adding many more in the future.  Welcome to the community!

Profile - Wishlist - Tradelist

Black and Blue--not just for bruises anymore.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Thank you for the welcome!

Well I can't wait to eventually get my collection fully uploaded really want to know how many I actually have I never really kept track after I bought over 1000 from a friend for 20, also hoping that deckmaster's gets added to the lists as I know I have a few cards from that set even though I've currently only found a forest and some swamps.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

it's ... a process for me.

I started by doing just the trade binder over a few hours, then went through and added money uncommons/commons over a few weekends.  I then said screw it and added everything.  I add newly-ordered cards as soon as I place the order, and update for local trades as soon as I get home that night.

The inventory is up to almost 32k cards, though I need to go through and weed out a bunch of the cheap and no-demand cards sometime soon.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I started uploading about the time that RtR came out, and took about 2, maybe 2 and half, months to input it all by inputting when I had a couple spare hours here and there. My collection was about 6800 hundred unique cards (20,000 total).

The collection I have is actually a community collection I manage for a group of players, which means that it periodically grows and shrinks. I have found that it is very important to add new cards quickly, but to also take notes about what cards leave so that I can remove them.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Yeah I definitely plan on being more on top of managing my collection now that I have people to play with again, so I'm sure my inventory will be growing and shrinking as things come and go. On my 3rd day of working on it just about done with my red cards, standing at 1300+ with 706 different cards (lands included). I'm dreading going through my blacks, its my second largest group of cards lol.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

CuriousPanda wrote:

Yeah I definitely plan on being more on top of managing my collection now that I have people to play with again, so I'm sure my inventory will be growing and shrinking as things come and go. On my 3rd day of working on it just about done with my red cards, standing at 1300+ with 706 different cards (lands included). I'm dreading going through my blacks, its my second largest group of cards lol.

Are they already sorted and in some logical order? I'd definitely do that prior to entering, as it's easier to keep track of where you are when you must put them away and resume later.

If lucky, you have someone close who is willing to help.  My wife read me card names and quantities on occasion, and that helped.  She plays, too, so she enjoyed seeing some new (to her) cards as well.  I already had them sorted by set, so she didn't need to know what all the symbols were. Heck, I still use a list for many of them.

Profile - Wishlist - Tradelist

Black and Blue--not just for bruises anymore.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

HikingStick wrote:
CuriousPanda wrote:

Yeah I definitely plan on being more on top of managing my collection now that I have people to play with again, so I'm sure my inventory will be growing and shrinking as things come and go. On my 3rd day of working on it just about done with my red cards, standing at 1300+ with 706 different cards (lands included). I'm dreading going through my blacks, its my second largest group of cards lol.

Are they already sorted and in some logical order? I'd definitely do that prior to entering, as it's easier to keep track of where you are when you must put them away and resume later.

If lucky, you have someone close who is willing to help.  My wife read me card names and quantities on occasion, and that helped.  She plays, too, so she enjoyed seeing some new (to her) cards as well.  I already had them sorted by set, so she didn't need to know what all the symbols were. Heck, I still use a list for many of them.

Sadly they aren't I stopped sorting them in the middle of sorting them some years back, so I've been having to do that as well. I spent last night finishing up my whites, and sorting my reds (which I just finished entering today). I could have my boyfriend help but he tends to do more work or start playing games after he gets home from work.

I guess at least once I get this done I can start picking out the low cost cards to start practicing altering on, I haven't painted seriously in years. And I suppose picking out the victims for the cheap black/red aggro deck a friend dared me to turn into ponies for shits and giggles.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

It took me a few years of on again off again sorting to get my 100k card alphabetized, and then a few more weeks of not hours at a time just to get all the rares cataloged. It was fairly easy getting everything put into here as I already had it all in spreadsheets on google drive......

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I just finished getting mine all uploaded Saturday night. Now all that's left is to sort them better. I'm not sure how I want to other then alphabetical and by card type.

I need to get more boxes that's for sure though, used to have everything in binders, until the damn rings broke free.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

My sort order is:
Color
Type
Converted Mana Cost
Name
Edition

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Maybe I'm missing something 'cause I'm new here -- I'm looking for a way to view a set checklist, check all the cards I have, and then add all the checked cards to my inventory. Is there a way to do this? Is there an 'add to inventory' button that I am just not seeing? 'Cause right now, it seem like I have to go to the checklist, manually click on each card, click on inventory, and type in the number I have.

Seems to me there should be a way to just add them all from the checklist, then use a toggle off some sort to alter the quantity. Anything like that exist?

thanks!

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

Yes.
Go to Card Database --> Magic: The Gathering.
Click on the "Advanced Search" button.
Choose the appropriate set from the "Edition Printed In"
Start adding inventory by clicking in the appropriate column.

Shahrazad - Yo Dawg! We know how much you like playing MTG, so we put a game of MTG in your game of MTG!

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I joined Deckbox on June 6, 2012.  As of 02/19/13 this is my card inventory status: Inventory(53048 cards, 10514 distinct)!  It took me probably 2 months of diligent cataloging almost every evening after work to complete it.  Now, I simply maintain my list whenever new purchases are made.  For me, Deckbox is a godsend!  I have my collection neatly stored in an old library card catalog cabinet.  They are all sorted by colors and types in alphabetical order!! (Can you say OCD?? big_smile) That took quite a bit longer to accomplish! It's a great system I've created but it was still difficult to know what all cards I owned when deckbuilding until I discovered Deckbox.  Like I said, this site is a godsend.

Feel free to peruse my collection anytime.  I have not sorted any of my cards into the tradelist column yet, but if someone wants to trade with me I follow one simple rule; if I own more than 2 playsets of a card, I'll trade the excess. So if I have more than eight of a card you are in need of, send me a trade offer.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

corvair64 wrote:

Yes.
Go to Card Database --> Magic: The Gathering.
Click on the "Advanced Search" button.
Choose the appropriate set from the "Edition Printed In"
Start adding inventory by clicking in the appropriate column.

This works, but I cannot seem to figure out a way that populates the set/quality/lang options when you add from this view.  Which kind of defeats the purpose if you have to click 6 times for each card to be entered.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

So I am trying to get motivated to list my cards, but I have about 80k and it is seeming very daunting. Is there a program that scans cards into a list for you?

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

If there was one, the creator would be rich by now! lol

I just recommend chunking it.  Assuming you already have them sorted in some fashion, just try to enter some each day.  At a rate of 500 per day, it will take you about six months to get through all of them.  If you can do 1,000 a day, you are down to three months.

Profile - Wishlist - Tradelist

Black and Blue--not just for bruises anymore.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

tssch have been on this site for weeks and still i have only catalogged 500 cards, smile[mtg][/mtg]

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I am at 11000 right now and have at least another 8000+ (two 4 tray 4000 card boxes) to go and a variety of personally made decks (so another 1000 or so).  Luckily the boxes have been sorted by color and alphabetized as I did that before I found this site to make it easier to find what I needed.  Eventually I will get them all entered...  Now I have to keep any new cards separate so I know if they have been entered or not. 

It will nice to get finished with all the initial entry as it will be a lot easier to do upkeep than the initial upload.

Re: How long did it take you to catalog all your cards

I've spent the last year or so chipping away at it, although only a few months of that has been on Deckbox.  Seems every time I get close to finishing, I either buy up someone's collection or I get more new cards.  That said, everything is inventoried now, I just need to transfer the remaining portion of my hard file onto Deckbox.  I'm in the R's and am in no rush, so it may take a few more months to do, but I do try to knock a letter or two off whenever I get the urge tongue