Protecting Strat game Cards and suggerstions...

I have been a strat o matic board baseball game fan, and user from the 60's till now. I have purchased around 60 teams from the past and present over the years. I have noticed that the newer card stock the last number of years are cheaper paper stock. I am almost afraid to handle them knowing they might tear or wear out after a year or two of use.

I think the Strat-o-Matic prices are very good and teams sets are only a few dollars. Good price I must say. My original team sets I bought 25 years ago and the original 60's team sets I purchase are stronger and made better. Does anyone know why the cards are not made so well like they were in the past? Let me guess as it might be to costly for Strat-o-matic to make a higher quality card at the good price we pay for it now?

I am playing plenty of games but am afraid most of these cards will wear out, tear or get bent up even though I am pretty careful. Long story short is....I decided to protect all my cards and had to go out and purchase 3 x 5 top loader plastic protector sleeves. ( they are bigger then the 3 x4 for baseball cards so they cost a little more.) I have 60 teams and am ordering more soon. 60 teams times 25 players per roster = 1,500 cards. I am paying close to $7 per 25 top loader protector sleeves. yikessssssss.

I need 60 packages with 25 sleeves per package at $7 each. That's $420 to protect these cards. Big investment for cardboard cards. I want to add another 25 teams soon and will push my total to nearly $600. I have purchased $300 already and have half the teams protected already. It is really nice to handle the cards in a plastic protector when playing.. No bending or tearing. Is there any suggestions to cut my cost but protect my cards for the long run? Even with the 3 x 5 plastic card protector I have to trim every card about a 1/8 of a inch to fit them in...it will be all worth it but would like any suggestion for a better solution. If not then I will have to suck it up and pay my sports card shop guy for the sleeves and like it...hahahahaha

How many teams do you play frequently? Unless you're doing full season replays where all teams are being used the same, I would only protect the teams I'm going to play frequently.

Also, if you really want to keep your set in pristine condition, it would be cheaper to simply buy a second set of the cards, never to be played, and skip buying protectors except for your most played teams.

That is a very good idea just to purchase a backup set of each team that I have now. I believe most team sets bought individually, are around $2. Thanks for the suggestion Coyote303.