Arcane Tinmen 38100 - Dragon Shield Card Codex Zipster Binder - XL Black

Looks nice and good material, works with dragonshield pages and comes with some

A fantastic binder, period end of story.My only dislike is that it can only hold up to about 30 pages of 24 cards per page. After that the stress of the width of the pages begins to force the rings open.

After collecting for over a year, I found I was adding and removing cards from my "most valuable" collection so frequently that I was better off using 3 ring binders and the 24-pockey side-loader pages from Dragon Shield that sell in 50 page packs. This makes adding cards so much easier, as the pages are removable from the binder, making card removal/insertion much easier than is the case for the binders with pages permanently installed.With that being said, I have found these are the best 3 ring binders available.First, they are leather bound and zip close, which is not the standard for most ring binders. Most ring binders do not close at all, meaning when they get enough cards in them the pages begin to sag down and hang out the bottom of the folder. This weakens the integrity of the top rings in these binders. They will wear out faster than the middle and bottom rings, and eventually won't close properly.Second, these are one of the few 3 ring binders that are designed to fit 24-pocket pages. Almost no binders on the market can accommodate this size of card-pocketed pages.Those factors each considered separately are very important if you want to offer your cards any meaningful security against commonly occurring methods of damaging. But the most important factor of all, for any collector serious about protecting their most valuable cards, is that this particular binder is the only one around, (that I can find, anyways) that are:-leather bound (i.e. resistant to water, albeit not waterproof)-outfitted with a zipper closer, and-designed specifically to fit the 24-pocket pages, about 20 of them in total, when completely filled front and back with cards that are double sleevedThe only negative I have to say about the binders are that the rings are delicate, you can't mistreat them or you risk damaging them permanently, which would render the binder unusable if the damage is severe enough. The good news is that because the closing zipper mechanism prevents the pages from sagging out the bottom, as I already went over, the only real way for the rings to get damaged is if you overfill the binders (don't do that, the limit is 20 pages per binder), or if you carelessly open the rings with great force. That can be avoided by using the two metal tabs, on the top and bottom of the ring mechanism, to open the rings, rather than pulling apart one of the rings themselves, such that the remaining rings are forced open. You may have previously gotten into the habit of forcing 3 ring binders open this way. Again, dont do it. Just use the tabs, that's what they're there for in the first place.So I'd actually give these binders a 4.5/5. I debated giving them a 5, since there is nothing better I have found on the market. However, a 5 would mean, to me, that there was no room for improvement, and I do think the binder could be improved, by strengthening the ring mechanism against the weakening that can occur from the type of mistreatment / misuse I warned against in the last section of my review. Sure, I explained how to best preserve the strength and integrity of the ring mechanism in this binder, but ideally it would be strong enough to maintain its integrity even after undergoing moderate misuse and abuse. That's the sole reason it doesn't get a 5/5 from me.

Very sturdy, although I thought this was the portfolio. Turns out though I prefer binders over this anyway.

Bought 2 of these binders for cEDH staples. Put 22 pages in each binder, single card per pocket and I have had nothing but problems with them. The zippers get jammed and stuck constantly, when flipping from one end of the binder to the other the rings ALWAYS pop open spilling the pages out, and when the rings are closed, one ring on each binder (top on one and middle on the other) never close completely so every second or third page flip the page gets caught on the open ring. These things are hot garbage!