Hey, Gav!
I've discovered that for both my collection and my business, I've been able to lean heavily on the sports card collectors' industry. Many products targeted to sports card collectors are perfectly suitable for playing card collectors.
- A "Super Monster" box is designed to hold about 5,000 sports cards. It can also hold about 125 poker-sized decks.
- Common, inexpensive stackable drawers from office supply stores like Staples or Office Depot are often made in just the right size for holding decks of playing cards. I have some that hold about 45 decks to a drawer.
- I went looking for some good, inexpensive packaging for the decks I sell in my business and stumbled on something called a "team bag." These are clear plastic bags just large enough to hold all the cards from a specific print run of sports cards for a single team - for example, the 1978 Topps baseball cards featuring the New York Yankees, or the 1980 Fleer football cards of the Dallas Cowboys. They have a flap that has a glue strip, making the bag sealable - and the strip can be reused several times before wearing out, allowing you to open and reseal the bag. A team bag is an excellent size for holding a single deck of cards, whether they're loose or in a tuck box, and many companies make them using archival-quality plastic to prevent deterioration in storage.
- For your rare, older decks, the binders and plastic pages with pockets designed for sports cards work perfectly for displaying your playing cards and keeping them protected at the same time. You can even store the individual cards in card sleeves for even better protection, allowing you to remove and handle the cards without transferring the oils and dirt commonly found on people's hands to the paper.