Posted in: Card Games, Games, Tabletop | Tagged: binder, Card Guardian, Dragon Ball Super Card Game, Pokemon TCG, trading cards

Trading Card Binder Review: Card Guardian 9-Pocket Binder

One of the biggest decisions a trading card game collector can make is deciding how to display their cards. In order to help out fellow collectors, this brand new series Trading Card Binder Review will take us through binders being sold as premium display items to see which products live up to the hype and which aren't worthy to store your big hitters. Whether you collect Pokémon TCG, Dragon Ball Super Card Game, Digimon, or any other CCG/TCG, I hope this helps you on your journey. Today, let's take a look at the Card Guardian 9-Pocket Binder.

(The labels are used personally for me to catalog my sets and have nothing to do with the binder's quality.)

Card Guardian 9-Pocket Binder: The Details

• 360 Pockets
• Side-load sleeves for the cards
• Available colors: Black, Green, Lime Green, Blue, Orange, Red, Teal (all-black interior)
• Zips shut
• No rings

The Good

• Color variety: I love a premium binder with multiple available color options, and a major, major plus is when a company offers an uncommon color. I find both the lime green and the orange option, the latter of which is an uncommon burnt orange style, to be a major draw. This will help me pick a theme for a set, allowing it to truly stand out from my display shelf. In the images, you can see both the lime green and blue variety, both of which have the same black interior.
• Material: Elegant, smooth material gives these binders a premium feel.
• Arching: Even when a binder is full, the pages of Card Guardian binders have limited arching. This is a major problem that many binders have, so seeing Card Guardian evade this is a major plus that works against its fatal flaw.
• Zipper: Premium feel, soft rubber. Sturdy and themed to the binder's color.

The Bad

• Pocket size: The pocket size of these pages is consistently too big, which prevents certain sleeve sizes from fitting snugly. Like the BCW binder, smaller-sized sleeves (think Ultra Pro) slip and slide and feel very loose. Only bigger sleeves (think Pokémon TCG Elite Trainer Box sleeves) will stay snug. I couldn't imagine how Pro-Fit Small Penny Sleeves would operate in here. I imagine the binder would eject your card and send it flying yards away considering how it handles even bigger sleeves. A binder with too-small pockets is a bigger red flag than a binder with pockets like these that are too big, but the pockets should simply be tight enough to fit all varieties of sleeves. This is where Card Guardian fall shorts even more dramatically than BCW.

Card Guardian 9-Pocket Binder: Final Rating

7/10: This binder is serviceable and I'd still consider it for holding a portion of my collection, but the thing it has going for it is its color selection. I find VaultX, Wintra, BCW, and TopDeck to all be better options for their equivalent zippered releases.

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