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Do you collect postcards? Most people have at least a few lying around, but many others stockpile them over the years and are quite proud of their collections. Some you might have received from friends, while you might have picked up others on your own travels as souvenirs. Still others might be vintage postcards which you found in small town bookshops or purchased online. You may even have postcards that are over a hundred years old.

You might already have some storage solution devised for your postcard collection, but maybe not—perhaps they are all stuffed in a shoebox (which, let’s face it, is not really a storage solution). There are a number of options out there for storing and organizing postcards, but have you thought of using bins to organize your collection?

A plastic storage bin organizer system works well for postcards because it is a great way to store a large quantity. Additionally, you can easily index the cards using some system that makes sense to you. Either use a set of plastic containers for organizing, or use divided plastic storage containers. Once you come up with the highest level of organizing, you can come up with different sub-levels that make sense.

For example, you could have separate plastic storage containers with lids for each of these:

• Postcards from friends and family
• Postcards from personal travels
• Vintage postcards

You could then have dividers in each which help you find your postcards quickly and easily. So for the “Postcards from personal travels” bin, you could have sections like:

• Guam, 1982
• Japan, 1989
• England, 1999
• Canada, 2007

… And so on. For postcards from family and friends, you could sort by year, by person, or use some other system that makes sense to you. Vintage postcards could be organized by subject or by date.

You can then flip immediately to the postcards you are looking for. If you want to show someone all of the postcards you got on your Guam vacation, you can.

Now, it should be noted that if you are storing vintage postcards, you ought to use archival-quality storage boxes—not standard plastic bins (though they are fine for the rest of your postcard collection). You also should purchase Mylar sleeves for each individual postcard. These will allow you to flip through them without getting oils from your skin onto the postcards. This will help to preserve them. You can purchase sleeves, archival boxes, and archival albums online, or you can find them at some local hobby shops.

Taking time to protect and organize your postcard collection is well worth it if you want your postcards to stay in good condition over the years to come. Doing so can also be a lot of fun, because you get to look over all of your cards again and enjoy some special memories. And once your postcards are sorted, you can more easily share your memories with others!