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Monday, March 9, 2015

How I Store Kpop Goods (Photocards, Clear Files, etc.)

Part of what I love about Kpop is the additional goodies that Kpop album include, such as photocards and postcards. After getting into Kpop, I fell in love with collecting random memorabilia besides photocards and postcards, such as mini posters, A4 clear files, as well as fansite goods. I started collecting stuff like this about two years ago, and it wasn't until last year that I figured out a decent way to store these types of things. Here I'll be writing about how I store my Kpop goods. I mostly collect Infinite memorabilia, so I'll relate this post mostly to Infinite's merchandise (and somehow they managed to be mostly of Myungsoo).
So many Kpop albums now don't just include a standard sized photocard, but they're getting more creative and they're getting to be postcard sized and even A4 sized. I didn't want to just leave my photocards in the albums, so I decided to buy art portfolio books in several dimensions, to best fit my various sized cards. My smallest dimension one is for 4" x 6" postcards, which contains 60 sleeves. I bought this, which is actually just for postcards and not specifically to hold art, for $2 at Daiso, a Japanese $2 store, but sadly I haven't seen this product for a year or so now.
I use this one to store all my small photocards, as well as my 4" x 6" postcards (above); the small photocards can slide around a bit in their sleeves since they're so small, but the postcards fit so well. In this sleeve is one of the bookmarks from my You're Beautiful OST album; many of the paper goods from albums will fit in this size.
You can see that many of photocards fit in this book, including the typical trading card sized photocards like Infinite H's, 4" x 6" postcards like from Infinite's New Challenge and from Myungsoo's endorsement for Shara Shara, and Infinite's Natuur Pop postcard set.

My remaining three are official art portfolio books, that I bought at my university bookstore in the art section. I bought them all from the brand Itoya, and they all have 24 sleeves and are more expensive for much fewer sleeves, at about $10 to $20 each.
The smallest book I have of the art portfolio books is 5" x 7" (above), which is perfect for postcards slightly larger than the 4" x 6" postcards. This size is perfect for Infinite's Destiny postcards and the postcard set from the drama My Lovely Girl.
The next size up that I bought was 8.5" x 11" (above), which is also A4 sized or regular printer paper sized. I have a set of IU and Infinite bromide mini posters that are just slightly shorter than A4, and fit perfectly in this book. This is also perfect for A4 photocards, like Infinite's She's Back photocard on the bottom right, or cards just a bit larger than the standard postcard size, like Infinite's Be Back on the left.
And lastly, I have an 11" x 14" book (above). I have several A4 clear files, which are meant to store A4 sized paper, meaning that the clear file itself has to be larger than A4. The top is from Infinite's Rally 1 in 2013; the one of the left is the folder containing all the files. The bottom ones are clear files from Infinite's That Summer Concert 2.The clear files (and the folders they came in) are a bit smaller than the full dimensions of this book, so they slide around a bit if I'm flipping through them quickly, but this is the best I could do.
Also the mini poster included in Infinite's IDEA Photobook are just slightly taller than A4, so I had to put it in this book as well. On the left is the backside of one of Infinite's Natuur Pop endorsement clear files.

And of course the next size up would probably be my posters, but for those I just frame them up and display them on my walls or sadly roll them up into a poster tube.

Some people would rather store photocards in binders like collecting trading cards, but that seems too complicated for me and I'd be too inclined to collect every photocard from each album to complete the sets. Also because photocards come in so many dimensions, it'd seem too difficult to find sleeves tailored for each one. I've settled on my method with these art portfolio books, but I just recently ran out of room in my 4" x 6" book and have photocards waiting to be put in sleeves...maybe I will try the binder method some day, just for the smaller photocards, and have the larger cards in these books. The only downfall about the way I organize my cards, however, is if I get a new photocard and have to change the order of my cards, since the sleeves can't be moved like binder sleeves.

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