A reader wrote that they have seen some card storage online, these are zip fastened and inside are pockets, held in a ring binder format. However they had been told that the rings damage the cards and asked if anyone had any experience of this happening with these binders, and can advise a way to stop it happening?
We heard from several readers, but also from Ian Lane, who tells us that the problem was first reported in America, on Pokemon cards, especially the chrome, metal, or hologram ones. And as other issuers added these specials to their sets they have started to be affected too
The main cause for this seems to be through collectors trying to squeeze more pages in their albums than are advised. So as long as you only use the number of pages that are supposed to fit in an album, or even slightly less, your cards will not be affected, because they will be held in the boundaries of space.
Another thing to look for is how the binders are made. There are two types available, ones with "O" shaped circular rings, and ones with "D" shaped oval tapering rings.
The "O" rings are mounted to the spine of the album, which allows the pages to slide into the danger zone from both ways and allow them to get squashed
However the "D" rings are mounted on the back of the album, so the pages can only get out of bounds on the top end, and it is also immediately obvious when you have tried to insert too many pages. In addition the metal compressor bars are also way more effective with the "D" ring binders.
There are a number of videos on YouTube covering this issue - but the best is probably "The Correct Way to Store Pokemon Cards in a Binder" by Deep Pocket Monster.
Anyway we hope that you will find this useful.