To inner sleeve or not to inner sleeve: That is the question

Using an inner sleeve with magnetic one touches makes a lot of sense. In today’s card production runs there are much more chrome surfaced cards, autos and other materials that need more attention than ever. Especially, if after some time a collector decides to grade and sell their valuable cards, the inner sleeve helps keep the card in pristine condition. The old trick of taking a penny sleeve and placing it on top of a card before closing the magnetic case is no longer one that needs to be implemented. For starters, what about the back of the card? Another issue is the aesthetics of the card when the sleeve is inside. Take a look at magnetic cases not perfectly designed for inner sleeves. More times than not you will see a wrinkle in the inner sleeve and the clarity is also going to be an issue because now you have two sheets of plastic from the sleeve placed on top of the card. You see, the card should be placed inside the sleeve to ensure the best protection, the best clarity and to keep the card from rattling inside. I always tell collectors that cards should float in the magnetic case symmetrically with the least amount of movement possible. There should be no wrinkling of the sleeve and it should aesthetically be as beautiful as possible.

The next thing to consider is mailing cards. The majority of deals done with cards these days includes online transactions. Cards are being mailed back and forth at a high rate and without an inner sleeve in a mag, I don’t think that mailing a card that is put directly into a magnetic one touch is the best idea. I can’t be too bias in this article because I am the owner of a card supply company promoting and selling mags with inner sleeves, but looking at the situation in a logical manner, it is clear, a magnetic case with an inner sleeve is ideal.

What could be some of the drawbacks? The sleeve could damage the card if it is too tight. This is very true and there are some brands that manufacture mags with inner sleeves where this concern is legitimate. The sleeve cannot be so tight that it is catching the corner of the card. Our sleeves are designed so that the cards have absolutely no catch on the sleeve, and I have been, and am continuing to invest a lot of my time with this company going to card shows to directly show and teach the community about our product. Collectors who have turned to GTi mags rave about the dimensions of the inner sleeve for both our 35-55pt mags and the 130pt mags.

It still baffles me that PSA decided not to use an inner sleeve like BGS does. Cards without an inner sleeve rattle a lot of the time inside their plastic cases. Not just PSA, but many Panini and other sports card company products come with a mag, yet still no inner sleeve. I have so many PSA cards that literally are not secure inside and rattle. This can not be something we as a community accept. PSA is already such a giant in the industry that at this point there is really no need to change what has worked for so many years, but I still think that if they added an inner sleeve to their product, it would be awesome. Another issue is the plastic they are using is not UV protected properly. So, there is always an issue of cards fading. Sure, although the resale value on a PSA slab today is king, the way in which the product is designed is not optimal and has a lot of room for improvement.

This can also be said about the generic magnetic one touches. From my experience working directly in China with manufacturing and truly getting a deeper understanding of how these mags are created and who is creating them, I came to the conclusion with Game Time International, that we will not be following the generic product lines that so many companies have with the magnetic one touch. We decided to create our own molds, creating dimensions that work with an inner sleeve that still give our cards room to breathe and not create any problems for the corners. Inner sleeves that are flexible to cater to cards 35-55pt, or 100-130pt.

During our first year in manufacturing more than 100,000 mags we have step by step refined our process and our mags shaping up to be one of the best mags in the market today. We don’t cut corners with the manufacturing.

So back to the question, to sleeve or not to sleeve? What are your thoughts.