Baseball card holders are containers designed to protect baseball cards from the kind of wear and tear which will reduce their value. They also help a collector transport and store their baseball cards. Here are some examples of baseball card holders.

Acrylic Card Cases
These are clear plastic hinged cases with snap closure which hold somewhere between fifteen and 250 cards. If you buy them in lots of at least ten they should cost between about sixty cents each for the smallest acrylic cases to closer to three dollars for the large two hundred card plus models. While this wouldn’t be the optimal storage for a very expensive, high grade card, acrylic plastic card cases are not a bad place to store a collection of cards that are worth a bit more than “common.”

Mini Snap cases
These individual card holders feature magnetic closures and special diamond shaped corners that prevent damage to the corners of the cards they house. There should be no PVC or acid in a mini snap case. They should also feature a UV coating or UV absorber which blocks harmful light rays and prevents the cards from fading. The price of a mini snap case depends on its thickness, but should run between about fifty cents and a dollar each if you buy them in large batches. Mini Snap cases are good for fairly valuable (less than $250) cards.

Top loaders
One piece hard plastic card holders in which you slide the card in through the top. Because of this precarious movement and the threat it can pose to the cards corners they aren’t as safe to use as a mini snap case. However they should be cheaper, at about fifteen cents each if you buy in bulk.

Screwdowns
The gold standard in individual baseball card holders. They come in either lucite or acrylic and in either one screw or four screw design and should feature UV protection. The most solidly built screwdown case is going to be a four screw lucite model. These should cost about six dollars a pop. That’s a lot to pay for a single card holder, but if you have a card worth more than a couple hundred bucks and you want to maintain its high PSA grade you’re going to want to get it in a screwdown holder and quick.

Binders and Pages
Binders and pages have always been a popular way to hold and display baseball card. The binder doesn’t have to be baseball card specific, it just has to have the classic three rings. The pages are made from polypropylene and feature either eight or nine card slots. (Eight for certain sets of older cards.) Binders and pages are probably not the best place to store a card of much value, but instead a fun way to look at your favorites which won’t one day be financing your unborn child’s college tuition. A lot of hundred binder pages should run about fifteen dollars.

Storage boxes
These are just big old cardboard storage boxes for baseball cards. They come in all sorts of different sizes — from a fairly square box that will fit about two hundred cards, to long thin boxes that’ll encase up to a thousand. They are typically shipped flat so you have to assemble them. They run between fifty cents and a dollar a box, depending on the size. Storage boxes should only be used to store common cards.

Trading card frames
Sort of a mix between binder pages and screw downs, these picture frame-like baseball card holders allow you to show off your favorite cards without risk of lowering their PSA rating. They range in size from frames that hold one card to those that can hold nine. The are priced according to size with the bigger size topping out at around twenty-five bucks.

Typically baseball bats are used to hit a baseball with. But that certainly isn’t the only use for these club-like tools. Baseball bats are often employed a method of home or car security, and many bars and convenience stores have a baseball bat latched under their front counter in case of burglary or a fight.

Sometimes folks will use baseball bats in impromptu home-improve: for example as a leg of a table or a desk. But the most common off-the-label use of a baseball bat is simple as a piece of memorabilia.

Signed baseball bats can be of sentimental or financial value to a collector of fan. So can baseball bats that had been used to get a particular result — such as a big hit in a big game — by either the bat’s owner or a Big League player that the bat’s new owner admires.

If you have such a baseball bat the question becomes where you store it.  You want to be able to gaze upon it but you don’t want anybody else thinking it’s just a regular bat and using it to hit a baseball or an evil doer.

The answer to this question is a baseball bat display case.

There is no single type of baseball bat display case.  But rather this description explains a whole class of casing. Some bat cases are wall mountable. Others are made to sit on a surface. Some have mirrors so you can see your glorious bat from all angles. Others are made from more than one bat, and up to ten bats. Lockable cases and bat display cases that offer UV protection from damaging sunlight are both quite popular and should be consider for bats of great value.

Some bat display cases offer details such as wood finishing or individual protection tubes within the case. Major League teams all sell logo bat display cases on their websites that are meant to show off memorabilia related to that franchise.

Much like a frame can sometimes cost more than the picture, one shouldn’t expect a baseball bat display case to be cheap. Sure you can find one for as little as ten bucks. (Although that would be accurately described as baseball display “tube.) However the serious bat collector should be prepared to spend close to hundred dollars for a high quality well-appointed baseball bat display case. And be prepared to spend even more if you are looking at a multi-bet display case.

Baseball bat display cases are sold at the same places you would find baseball memorabilia and baseball cards. They are also sold at Major League team shops and on websites like Amazon. With its focus on memorabilia, eBay is a terrific place to buy baseball bat display cases.

Often when you buy bats as memorabilia they come with the display case. Make sure to factor that in when pricing. A bat that already has a case is likely worth at least fifty bucks more than one without. That is unless you plan on leaving your signed bat out and risk it being used on the diamond, as a weapon, or as a load bearing part of an unfortunately constructed piece of furniture.