The Long, Convoluted Process I Use to Update my Baseball Card Collection (your mileage may vary)!

I'm slowly working my way through my latest COMC order.  My process for new incoming Barry Larkin cards is fairly convoluted which means it takes me quite a bit of time to get things how I like them. To wit, here's how my system works (*note* this is probably a bad system and I can't necessarily recommend it to anyone else)!  

First, I scan the front and back of any new Barry Larkin card.  I usually try to fit as many cards as I can on my scanner bed.  Then I flip all of the cards over and scan the other side.  I have to keep the cards in the same general location on the scanner bed, especially in cases where I've got multiple cards with the exact same card back (but different fronts - such as with the four higher end Barry Larkin parallels for today's post)!

Once I have both sides of each card scanned, I go through and create individual image files for each card. I combine the front of the card with the back of the card into a single image file.  

Theoretically, this makes it much, much easier for me to find a digital copy of any Larkin card that I own, should I need such a thing.  I use a simple naming system for every card in the folder.  

For example, this 2021 Topps Triple Threads Emerald parallel gets the file name:  Larkin-2021-ToppsTripleThreads-52-Emerald  (note, I uploaded the card front prior to adding the card back to the image file).

In naming things this way, all of the cards from a specific year and set (including all parallels) will be grouped together in my folder.  When I get new Barry Larkin cards, the scan goes into my "need to write about" folder.  Once I write the Barry Larkin Collection post for that specific card, then I move the image into my "Written About" folder where the image will live forever.

Here's a sampling of my "Need to Write About" folder:

Next, I update my Excel spreadsheet that houses my entire Barry Larkin collection. 

My spreadsheet contains every Barry Larkin card known to me with a stated print run of at least 25 copies (with a few exceptions like modern "Leaf" products which I simply ignore).  

Finally, I go to COMC and update my collection there as well.  I use COMC primarily for trading which means I must keep my wants/haves updated or else I'll end up trading for something that I already own.  I'm bad enough buying stuff I already own, no reason to trade for it as well!

Once all of the above steps are complete, it's finally time to add the Larkin card(s) to my binder.  I grabbed the appropriate binder (I'm currently up to 5 binders for my entire Barry Larkin collection) and flip to the correct page.  For most cards, I'll have a little placeholder slip that I then remove and insert the newly added card.  Repeat as necessary!  For today, that means four more little slips of paper get to come out of my binder and in their places go four actual baseball cards.  Hooray!

And that's my process for incoming Barry Larkin cards!  Probably not the most efficient but I like having a few built-in redundancies for my collection should anything happen!