20. 7. 2024
Do you collect booster packs of your favorite collectible game like I do? Then you probably also have them just stored in boxes somewhere and are wondering what else to do with them. How about putting them in binders, like cards? Can't you do that? Maybe not before, but it is now!
I've been collecting booster packs for a really long time. As albums and pages for them started appearing on the market for various specific products like toploaders, oversized cards, etc., I held out hope that I would see something similar for booster packs. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Efforts to reach out to major game accessory manufacturers have not met with success either. But I really wanted the pocket pages and so a plan was born - I will make it myself.
We live in an amazing time. Not only can we communicate with people halfway across the planet, but we can trade with them. All in real time. Do you need to make a product but there is no manufacturer in your country (or even continent)? That's okay, just try a little further afield. And that's what got me to China. China has one undeniable advantage, there are plenty of factories and you can make almost anything here. You just have to know how to look. My choice ended up being a company that had already produced binders for toploders for a successful Kickstarter campaign for a certain Canadian store. It took a few months, but I finally got pre-production samples that I was happy with. And production could begin. And today I'm proud to present the final product.
The most important factor was to design the individual pockets of the pages to accommodate booster packs with different numbers of cards inside. And indeed, you can comfortably store both the 1-card box topper boosters from the Zendikar Rising set, as well as the entire 21-card Jumpstart booster pack. If you collect booster packs of other collectible card games such as Pokémon, Lorcana, Flesh & Blood , Final Fantasy or Star Wars and more, those pocket pages are always ready to provide protection for your darlings. Even games with smaller cards like Yu-Gi-Oh! are no obstacle, and you're very unlikely to have a problem if you collect sports cards, for example, as long as the width of their cards is the same as that of collectible cards.
Since the individual pockets are loaded with a heavier load of cards, these pocket pages are made of a thicker material than what you're familiar with, such as the Ultra Pro Platinum pages for single cards. This has several advantages. The pages are more damage resistant overall, and will better protect the contents of the individual pockets. Last but not least, the stronger material holds the contents of the pockets inside better, which is especially noticeable in booster packs that only contain a few cards. They won't float around in the pockets and fall out, even if you turn the entire pocket page upside down.
But attention was also paid to other, smaller but important details. The joints between the pockets are not only stronger, but above all they are finished with enlarged points. These help prevent the phenomenon you may be familiar with in classic pocket pages, where the joints between the pockets tear when inserting cards. Both rows of pockets also have a so-called spacing, a 2 mm wide strip where part of the pockets are missing to allow the cards to be inserted well. In this case, it's especially important when you're dealing with entire thick packs of cards and don't want to crease the bottom of the booster pack cover unnecessarily.
And that brings us to the last, very important fact, which is the size of those pocket pages for booster packs. In order to maintain as much compatibility with the other pages as possible, the height of the pages is the same as the aforementioned Ultra Pro Platinum Pocket pages for 9 cards. There is also a universal 11 hole strip that works with virtually any ring mechanic. However, as you probably already understood, the page width itself could not remain the same and is 256 mm, which is 30 mm more than the 9-card pocket pages. This then leads to the slightly annoying fact that the pages will not be suitable for some binders. A binder that you will 100% have no problem with is the Ultra Pro Collectors Album. Likewise if you own, for example, an older Collectors Album from Dragon Shield or Blackfire. But unfortunately both of these manufacturers have stopped producing them. Another reliable option are the binders, which are designed for inserting standard pocket pages with 12 pockets for so-called playsets. In any case, there is a simple and reliable way to find out if your favorite binder is a suitable carrier for pocket pages for booster packs.
Step 1 - Open the binder and insert a 9-pocket page for individual cards with a standard width (226 mm) into the ring drive.
Step 2 - Measure how much space is left from the right edge of the page to the edge of the binder deck. If it is 30 mm or more, the booster pocket pages will fit into the binder without sticking out.
Finally, I would like to mention that the whole project and its implementation is a one-time affair. I don't plan any further production and therefore consider the booster pocket pages a limited product that once sold out, will not be available again. One pack is enough to store 300 booster packs. It may seem like a high number, but can you guess how many different booster packs were released in Magic: The Gathering last year alone? Then know that 2023 will add over 50 more to your collection if you're really consistent.
You can buy pocket pages for booster packs directly from tokensformtg.com (ships worldwide), or if you're from Europe you can also find them at cardmarket.com.
Stefan Conka
TokensForMTG
10. 4. 2024
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