Librarian Badge of Honor

I’ll admit it: I’ve been longing for a card catalog for at least five years or so. Denisa bought me a small one (6 drawers) a year or so ago, and that was a good step, but I wanted the real deal. A full, free standing card catalog like you’d find in an old-school library. But they don’t come cheap these days. People have figured out they’re awesome pieces of furniture, great for storing any number of things.

Like, say . . . Magic the Gathering cards.

(You know you might have a problem when you’ve got so many cards that you start looking for a professional storage solution to house them.)

Last night, I’m pleased to say that dream came true. I’m the proud new owner of a beautiful old solid oak card catalog, complete with 30 (count them: thirty) drawers. It sitting next to my side table in my bedroom even as I write this.

Getting it proved to be more difficult than I anticipated.

It’s a solid piece, three and a half feet tall, three feet wide, and a foot and a half deep. A friend with a trailer was generous enough to drive out with me to pick the catalog up. Denisa had work and a parent/teacher conference, so I took the kids along for the ride. All told, we were underway for about three hours getting it and taking it home.

And that catalog is solid. It was like moving a brick, but without any easy way to hold onto it. Getting it up onto my porch, through the front door, back through the kitchen, into the mud room, up the stairs to the addition, through the hall to the bedroom, and across the room to the corner was no small undertaking. I pulled a few muscles in my leg that are still recovering. It’s a good thing I’ve been lifting weights at lunch, let’s just leave it at that. (And I think my friend is still on speaking terms with me, but I can’t 100% confirm that. He’ll probably be less willing to help me move furniture in the future. Unless I’m doing something lighter, like a piano.)

But it’s home now, and I get to fill it with all manner of things when I get home today. All my Magic cards for starters. After that, I’m not sure. Maybe some arts and crafts? They’re just so handy. All those deep drawers, ready to bring order to pretty much anything you’ve got.

And for those of you wondering how I’m going to organize my cards, it’ll be chronologically by set, then by color. I can fit two rows of cards in each drawer, so 60 rows total. I’m hoping to get a rough estimate on how many cards I have at the moment as I put them away. Then when the other half of my collection (that I bought from a friend) comes up to join me from where it’s resting in Pennsylvania at the moment, it will all be together in one place at last.

I think I have a good long while before I’ll need a second catalog.

Let’s hope so, at any rate . . .

Here’s a pic: