The Art of Bindering — misprintedMTG (2024)

The following guide contains my philosophy, thought process, and tips and tricks in the art of arranging collectible cards for display in a binder. For me, the binder is a medium in which I can curate and present my collection in the most pleasing way possible. It is the vessel through which I and others experience my collection. I believe our collections are expressions of ourselves, so why not present them as best as possible? The arrangement of cards in the binder becomes an element of the collection that holds as much weight as the cards within it. With that being said, I do not believe that there is a “perfect” way to arrange cards in a binder. Perhaps this is why I find myself fully reorganizing my binder on almost a yearly basis. My collection is ever growing, so why would my binder be static? When all is said and done you should organize your binder in the way that makes you the most happy. The art of bindering is knowing when to deviate from the rules and norms. I hope that in reading this guide, and in curating your collections, that you come to love the process of bindering as much as I do.

Choosing a Binder:

The first thing to consider when bindering is which type of binder to store your valuable collection in! For the purposes of this guide, I will only be covering 9 pocket binders. I’m sure that if you put your mind to it that you can apply the techniques in this guide to any type of binder whether it be 4 pocket or even 16 pocket.

The first step to choosing a binder is figuring out what you want out of your binder. Your collection’s needs might be entirely different from my collection’s. To give you an idea of the types of needs I’m talking about, I’ll let you know what I want out of my binder. As my collection is a misprint collection, I want a binder that displays both the front and backs of the cards. I also need a fairly thick binder because my collection is rather large and I want to avoid multiple binders if possible. I would like the ability to easily reorganize the page order and love the option to use non-conventional pages for really odd situations.

These needs have directed me to using a 3 ring binder. If perhaps you wanted something that protects the cards a little more you might go for a fixed page Monster style binder. Let’s go over the pros and cons of the various binders so you can make the best choice for your collection.

There are many other different variants of binders out there, but these are the ones that I have personal experience using. They cover the general gamut of available binders and you can extrapolate similarities between them and other variants.

The Danger of the 3 Rings:

The major concern of collectors that usually deters them from using a 3 ring ring binder is the risk of binder dings. Binder dings are a type of damage that can happen to the cards in your binder when the page slips over the top of the rings and compression dents the cards that slipped over. I’m here to tell you that binder dings are completely avoidable as long as you take proper care of your collection. Here are my tips on how to prevent binder dings:

• Don’t use O rings. D & A style rings are much safer.

• Don’t overfill your binder with too many pages.

• Don’t manhandle your pages when flipping through your collection.

• Be careful and avoid turning too many pages at once.

• Use a sheet lifter on top to prevent page slips when the binder is closed.

Useful 3 ring pages:

• UltraPro Side Loading 9 Pockets - My standard go to binder page

• BCW 3 Pocket - I use these for some odd shaped cards or things that wont fit into normal pockets

• BCW 4 Pocket - These are great for oversized commander or planechase sized cards

• BCW 3 Pocket Currency - A page I rarely use but is perfect for my flag errors

• BCW 8x10 - I use these primarily for the 6” x 9” cards

• UltraPro 8.5x11 Photo Page - I use these for Godbook Pages and Proofs

Card Curation: Breaking it Down into Themes and ‘Sets’

Choosing a binder is easy. Now it’s time to figure out how to organize all your cards on the page. My core philosophy for how to do this involves creating a theme for each page and breaking down the cards that fit those themes into sets. Sometimes pages will have multiple themes, but when this happens it’s best to try to have some relation between those themes. As misprint collectors the most obvious theme for a page is organizing it by type of misprint. However, page themes are where you can start getting creative with your collection. Themes can be as simple or complex as you like. You could theme a page by card type or color, or maybe something more specific such as miscuts that show blue cards as the 2nd card. It’s really just dependent on what cards you have available or what you want to plan to collect. As you discover themes within your collection you’ll start to notice that you’ll collect cards specifically to fill those themes/pages.

Sometimes you will have a page that makes itself by having 9 cards that fit a theme. Other times you wont. In both cases you want to start looking for sets of matching cards that you can organize into patterns. Symmetry is aesthetically pleasing and something that you want to strive for as well. You should look for potential symmetry in both the set and sub-set levels. For example, if you have a set of 3 miscuts, and two are green and one is blue, put the two green miscuts on opposite sides and the blue one in the center.

Before I get into some of the common patterns I use, I want to take a moment to mention the center spot. I traditionally reserve this spot for the best misprint on the page. It can be a little bit of a balancing act to achieve symmetry while reserving the center spot, and the decision to go one way or the other really depends on the cards and page in question.

Sets of 2’s

I find that sets of twos are usually best used to fill empty spaces on pages with larger sets, but if you have to, you can fit four sets of two with a center card on a page.

Sets of 3’s

Sets of threes are just lovely and can make for some stunning binder pages. Threes are one of the easiest numbers to work with. It’s also worth mentioning that a page doesn’t HAVE to be three sets of three. You can mix and match any of these numbers and patterns with one another.

Sets of 4’s

Four can be a little bit of an awkward number, but there is room for two sets of four with room for a center piece on the page.

Sets 5

Sets of five compliment sets of four or two sets of two (not pictured below) really well. It’s also possible to arrange a set of five cards in an X pattern, but I have yet to find a situation where I believe that this is superior to the cross pattern.

Sets 6

Sets of six were made for symmetry. Goes perfectly with a set of three or a set of two with a center piece.

Sets of 7

Sets of seven are where I’ll end the visual aids since there’s not really much room to play around with at this and higher numbers. These are the primary two patterns I use for my sets of seven.

Overflow & Empty Spaces:

As you are arranging your cards into themes and sets you will inevitably run into situations where you have a pile of cards that are extra (for example a set of 10 leaves you with 1 extra) and also themed pages where you don’t have enough cards to fill all the spaces of a set. I tend to funnel the extras into unthemed mishmash pages that I call overflow pages. These pages serve as a temporary home for my spillover, and I will constantly reevaluate them to see if any of them can fit into a new themed page. I also feel that it’s important to leave blank spaces on some of your pages. Planning for expansion is important, and it makes collecting extremely satisfying when you can eventually ‘finish’ a page.

Misprints Facing Forward:

When dividing your cards into sets and placing them into your binder, I am a firm believer of presenting your misprints misprinted side forward. If there’s a case where the misprint relies on seeing both sides to understand the misprint (such as inverted backs and double sided cards) I will place the card so that the card is inverted on the forward facing side, and normal on the back. I would also advise against any layout in a centerfold style unless you are using a binder with opaque double sided pages.

Comparison Cards:

With some of your misprints, specifically color errors, you may want to include non-misprinted versions of the cards to use as a visual comparison. I’ve gotten into the habit of putting these cards right behind each respective misprint, so that you can see the difference when you turn the page. It also makes it easy to take both cards out at once to show the difference. I’m personally not a fan of putting the normal cards and the misprints next to each other on the page because then you run into situations where viewers spend time looking for misprints on non-misprinted cards. Your ideal situation is to have a pair of different misprints on the same card (for example a color error and a miscut) so you can have a direct comparison within a set on the page.

Example page discussions:

Let’s take a look at some examples from my binder so that you can see these theories in action

Here we have a page themed around ink errors, more specifically types of blotches. We have multiple layers of sets with a 5-2-1-1 and also a 5-4 when comparing front and back errors. The center spot is reserved for the coolest misprint on the page. Something else to note is that the bottom left and right cards are connectors. This is one of the rare cases where I opted for page aesthetics and symmetry over keeping connectors right next to one another.

Page Order:

If you thought we were done by nicely arranging cards on a page, think again! This article is titled “The Art of Bindering” after all. It turns out that you can utilize the same care and intent when it comes to ordering your pages within the binder. This is why I prefer a 3 ring vs a fixed page binder. The fixed page binder becomes a lot more difficult to plan, and that’s doubly true when your collection grows. I generally like to organize my pages into sets of pages. I used to be a lot more rigid when it came to my page ordering. For example, I used to have all of my miscuts, followed by all of my ink errors, followed by all of my crimps, etc. While I generally maintain that type of ordering, I’ve since opted for a more varied ordering of pages. I find that it creates a more exciting and interesting viewing experience for others since they can’t anticipate what’s coming next. With that being said, one of my favorite set of pages in my binder are my 4 ink bleed pages which are in a predictable CMYK order.

There’s something that I like to call a “Wow Page” that I believe every binder should have at least one of. A wow page is simply a page composed of your best cards. The intent is to make a viewer say, “Wow” when they see it. Sometimes it can be the very first page of your binder, but I like to keep it a few pages in to catch people off guard. While we’re on the topic, it’s a common occurrence for people to put the best examples in their collection towards the front of the binder. It can be very tempting, but beware of front loading your binders with all of your best cards at the beginning. While exciting at first, it creates a situation where the viewing experience starts off exciting but quickly tapers off. I like to keep high quality cards interspersed throughout my entire binder.

How to Binder:

The last bits of wisdom I have to impart upon you in the art of bindering is my process for fully reorganizing a binder. When I say “fully” I’m not being entirely honest. Some of my pages are locked in as finished. The first thing I do is set aside those finished pages for later consideration. The next step is removing every card from its respective binder page. I then start to create piles of misprints sorted by type of misprint. Do not underestimate the amount of space you will need to do this. When you start breaking things down you can easily overcome all the free space on your desk. So you should be left with a bunch of piles of magic cards. Choose one and look through it. You don’t have to do any more organization just yet. Just get a visual idea of what you have and start to form sets in your mind. This is more important than it sounds. If you don’t have a clear picture of what you have, effectively curating it becomes difficult. Once you’ve digested each of your piles, then you can start organizing the cards into potential sets. Hope you left room on your desk because you will be making more piles. By now you should have an idea for several pages. Go ahead and clear some room by filling some pages and set those aside. Filling pages is a good opportunity to evaluate the condition of the binder page and is a good time to swap out any that are too worn down. Continue the set sorting and paging until you’re through your entire collection. Now you should have a stack of pages to organize. Go through the same observation and visualization stage that you did with the cards and get an idea for the order of your pages. The only thing left now should be placing the pages in the binder (if you’re using a 3 ring). And congratulations! You’re done. This whole process usually takes me a few days to go through, so take your time and enjoy the act of going through your entire collection. You’ll find that all the effort was well worth it.

That will wrap up this guide on the Art of Bindering. I hope you have found it helpful. If you need any inspiration feel free to check out The Digital Binder Project. Good luck and happy bindering!