I'm planning on going out to find something to put all of the cards in, like box with dividers, so they can all be standing up in a row and take up less space on the table. I figure the dividers should be taller then the cards so they can be labeled, or some kind of slope can be used to keep them all visable. I've seen the plastic organizer specifically for game cards being sold online, but i would rather try and find my own solution first.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips or ideas they came up with to share? Particularly for dealing with the smaller format Item cards.

I use ziplock bags for various small components (I actually should get a couple more). One for the sliders, one for clues, one for brainsandhearts, one for money, and one for miscellaneous tokens from the base game (mostly doom, terror, closed, 1st player, um, I think that's it).

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Reread your post. Oh. That's not what you meant, is it ;')

I've seen some home made ones over at boardgamegeek.com. Other than that, maybe something made from foam core. I just use multiple dinner trays that are next to each player. Each one has a few decks of cards he'll be responsible for, like locations or items or whatever. It helps to alleviate the space problem a little.

A fishing tackle bait organizer. Find at sporting stores.

I have business card holders from Staples. Each easily holds 8 sets of the large cards (31 cards per set) on their sides which is the exact total of the large location cards (until Innsmouth arrives). In addition, the bottom holder is thicker so I put the skill, injury, madness and the combination of the two sided investigator cards on their sides. They're great for game play, but don't fit into the AH boxes and so I have to carry them separately. At the last game convention, I probably had 20 people stop by and want to know where I got them.

However, What I'd probably do if I had it to do over is use the large boxes (approx 4"x3"x6") I used to hold my magic cards in. If you don't use the lid and take the black plastic insert out the the boxes they just fit. Again the cards go on their sides. I currently have two of them. I have my Mythos cards in one and Other World cards in the other. I have dividers between each Other world and each Mythos expansion which makes it quite easy to customize my Mythos decks. In addition, other half cards can fit in this box too, but they are too high to have dividers.

Both are made of clear plastic. The downside of the more compact, card boxes is that I have to distribute the cards, where with the large more opulent Staples holders, players can easily see the cards and take them themselves.

mageith said:

I'll swing by Staples and take a look. I just recently picked up all of the available expansions, and looking at everything layed out, i think the true maddness of this game will be the effect it has on my ocd tendency towards effeciency.

Mageith mentioned the business card holders. My dining table is only 5' x 3.5' so I needed to come up with a tighter setup solution. When I saw them at staples, I knew I had found it.

Here is a pic of an older setup.

I actually use 4 of them now which accomodates the base set, Dunwich Horror, Kingsport Horror, and King in Yellow. I'll need to add a fifth holder when Innsmouth Horror is released.

After I got used to the game and what the special encounters were for each location, I started to re-purpose some of the space on the board by placing decks of cards on top of the descriptions of the special encounters for a location. For example, the deck of skills goes on the administration, common items on the general store, unique items on the curiosity shop, etc. Turns out that for the base game the only investigator deck that doesn't have a place to go is the retainers (since there isn't a guaranteed place to get a retainer). This even extends to the expansions, eg. Injury cards go on the hospital and madness go at the asylum.

I also started placing the Arkham encounter decks ont the board as close to the neighborhood as possible. For example, if you don't mind covering up part of the board that says "other worlds" you can place the deck for SouthSide between Ma's and South Church.

What an awesome idea, I'll have to swing by a Staples and see if I can pick one or two of these up.

Those are pretty cool. At our store we have a card sorting tray that we use -- it has 18 angled spots for the cards, so we can get most of the components in the tray, and all of them is only using the basic game. Protech supplies makes them. We got ours from our distributor, but I don't know if we can still get them.

As for storing the game, I use the Chessex component trays. They are 4x4, and about the dimensions of a sheet of paper. When you remove the cardboard from the bottom of the box they almost perfectly fit.

I'm very tempted to write Rio Grande Games and see about getting a "replacement" tray for my Dominion cards. Then I could sort all the cards from all the expansions into one tray. As it is, just about everytime we play (weekly) I need to pull out all my copies to find all the different components I need. One of these days I'll build a master case.

I grabbed some card boxes from a comic store and chopped the lids off. These things cost less then a $1 each.

Scanned and printed some cards to make the deviders. I know the smaller card box looks fubar, but you dont have to grab the cards in the second row very often, and they are actually pretty easy to flip through.

Not the prettiest solution, but it works.

Really envious of all your great solutions, we thought zip-lock bags were already the height of accomplishment

Before I start reorganising Arkham, I definitely need to sort out all the Descent counters though - this thread rocks with good ideas!