I guess you have to have a problem if you want to invent a contraption

While cruising through tables at a record show recently, I realized how frustrating it is to find a nice 7" picture sleeve you want but then you see the top of it all mangled all up from being flipped through in the box.  Two tables later I found a guy who had seemed to solve this problem by putting cardboard backing boards in some of his rare ones.  He was using thick cardboard like a mailer insert.

It got me thinking back to my comic collecting days of bagging and boarding comics...

We've all seen this before... 

When I got home, I started work on my contraption.  I ordered a few hundred comic backing boards (7.625 x 10.5").  Make sure you buy acid free buffered boards.  Then it was just a matter of cutting them to the right height with a heavy duty paper cutter.  You can cut two sheets at a time easily.  Takes about 5 min to cut a pack of 100 boards.

Then I just started inserting them into my 45 sleeves.  I did find out that many sleeves are too tight so I replaced a lot using standard 45 sleeves from Bags Unlimited which are cheap enough.

A few weeks later I've gone through a few thousand boards and have a ways to go.  I can say I'm totally happy with the outcome and don't worry about dinging the top of my picture sleeves any more.  They also do a good job protecting the corners in the event you ever dropped a sleeve.  Plus it just makes the whole collection much more professional looking...

A story worth sharing alas another grim tale....