Sorting Your Collection...

[The Mixer]

Im curious how everyone sorts their collection I am re-organizing my books and am wondering the best route to take.
Till now I had all my books organized by title and # all together regardless of how many of each I have.

I am wondering if I should pull one set and set it aside as kind of a master set..any ideas out there.

thanks

John

[Eric Jackson]

Valiants are in long boxes, ordered by name then #. I have dividers so i can search quickly. The rest of my books are in short boxes, unsorted pretty much.. except comics i still follow.

[Daniel Jackson]

I kind of do the same thing as Eric. But I put all my Valiant's in short boxes (so I can move them easier) with named dividers in between each run of books. I keep all my extra and duplicate issues separate though.

[Master Dorque]

I guess it depends on the size of your collection and what it consists of. Mine is pretty big (about 50 short boxes full), and has a wide range of titles from numerous publishers. I have boxes that are dedicated to publishers - like my Valiant, Dark Horse, Image and CrossGen boxes. Then I have some boxes that are dedicated to particular characters and related titles - Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Xmen boxes. Then I have a large number of misc. boxes with mixed titles and publishers that are sorted alphabetically by title, with each box numbered. As I buy new books and read them I keep a couple boxes handy and just keep them in these boxes. Then, once or twice per year, I bring all the other boxes in from the garage, and file the new titles away into the long term storage boxes. This is usually a couple night project, just bringing in the 50 boxes from the garage is a chore! Then as boxes fill to capacity, you have to add in new boxes and reshuffle the books to fit. It's kinda a nice opportunity to revist the collection. In fact we have a friend from Germany who comes out to visit us about once a year, and she always wants to be involved in the "putting away the new books" project. She loves the chance to go through the collection looking at the various covers, and with a job this big the more help available the better. For me, these are the times that help define what being a true comics fanboy means. Oh yeah, I also have a couple of small fireproof safes that I bought from Target, and I keep my most valuable books in these.

[depluto]

Alphanumeric. Three long boxes hold a single run of Valiants (and another box for VH2-3), and I put the doubles somewhere else. So, yeah, a master set works for me.

The comics are in order, it's the box storage that's the problem. I built shelves inside the walls of a couple of closets (six on each side) to keep them out of (my wife's) view.

[DJSpecter]

I have one set of my books in order mostly alphabetically. Then I have second copies or special issues in a second box, but I guess it depends on how many issues you have multiples for.

Of course I'm too cheep to go for boxes, so I have them all along a bookshelf placed in the top of my closet. Everything just fits.

-Dave

[Magnus Man-O-War]

For my Valiant comics, I have them sorted in chronological reading order for the pre Unity books. After that I sort them by title because the continuity gets too messed up after Unity to even try to sort them by date. Most of my other comics (about 40 long boxes) I sort by titles (ie all the mutant books from marvel in one area, Superman in another, CrossGen books in another and so forth). My X-Men titles are also sorted by a loosely based reading order that I have made up.

[soundoftheuniverse]

I've got longboxes of the common stuff and two short boxes of CGC's and the rare Premiums etc.

[cinlach@aol.com]

after realizing i didn't have valiant books i thought i had i took all the vh1 books out of my collection and put them in their own boxes with title dividers.

the rest of my collection, which thanks to ebay is rapidly shrinking, is alphanumeric.

[comicguy]

I have 110 short boxes in straight alpha/numerical order and 1 room up stairs that the wife allows me to have as a comic room(it still has too much stuff in it so I have been slowly selling of my action figures). All of my new purchases go in boxes on the side of my collection and once a year I line up all of the boxes and file the comics in order. I try hard not to keep duplicates, I think I am down to 1 short box of dupes usually from lots I buy on ebay that have a couple that I already have.

[Todd Luck]

I've got mine divided into a "sorta Jim Shooter era" Valiant section (I've got a few post-Shooter runs in there I like such as Bob Hall's Shadowman) which is in a long box with the complete runs of Defiant, Broadway, Orstrander Spectre and most of Robinson's Starman (It's my "grab this if the house catches on fire" box).

I've got the majority of my post-Shooter Valiant and Accliam comics in another short comic box. I'm the sort of guy who doesn't have multiple copies of many comics and I tend to divide them by stuff I like and stuff I'ld like to ignore

[DawgPhan]

I do boxes with just Valiant and then other boxes of the rest of it. The Valiant boxes are in order by title then number....the other box is in no particualr order...I use long boxes right now, but I plan on switching to short boxes after the move and buying some wire shelves for my office.

[Brother J]

Alphanumeric. Three long boxes hold a single run of Valiants (and another box for VH2-3), and I put the doubles somewhere else. So, yeah, a master set works for me.

I can't fit my complete Valiant run into three long boxes, but that might be because I have everything, including all the variants. It almost makes it, but I can't fit the end of my X-O Manowar lot into the last box, only up to issue #35. Ah, those last X-O issues are pretty bad, anyway, maybe I should just toss them out!

[ikcizokm]

Im curious how everyone sorts their collection I am re-organizing my books and am wondering the best route to take.

Hi there. I used to be a frequent visitor to this forum but have been away for a while... a lot has changed.

Anyway, speaking as someone who owned a comic book store for a time, I tend to catalog my personal collection much the same way. Long boxes for archived books, divided by title alphabetically (with dividers) in ascending order by issue #. I don't have a lot... about 12 boxes, so I don't bother separating them by publisher... I think it's easy this way.

I keep a few short boxes around to put my new books in temporarily while I read them or until I have some time to file them in the long boxes. My monthly sub is about 40 titles, so I only do this every few months.

God I love comics. :mrgreen:

[depluto]

Yeah, I remember the days when I only had 12 long boxes

With 40 comics a month (plus whatever you pick up at cons, on line or shops), you'll need at least 1.5 long boxes a year to keep up with things. It starts to add up over time.

What kind of stuff are you reading now?

[dave]

i used to have it all in one long box until greg made this infernal SITE!!!!

haha.

then it was 3 long boxes alphanumeric with dupes.

then it was a master set.

now it's the teeny tiny short box of stuff that i plan on keeping and then there's the rest.

i'm thinking of just hanging on to the good stuff-and just the tpb's if i can, and a few choice others...

yeah...i'm thinking of getting back on the wagon guys...