How to Organize Your Ticket Stub and Pocket Schedule Collection

By Sal Barry

I loved saving the ticket stubs from the Chicago Blackhawks hockey games I went to when I was a kid. Each time I went to a game, I was sure to bring my stub to school the next day to show off to my friends and prove that I was there. Sometimes the games were important – all-star or playoff games – and sometimes it was just a Tuesday night regular season game. Regardless, it was cool to just go and then have that small, visual reminder that I could look back at. Over the years, I have also saved pocket schedules, rosters, lineup cards, score cards and any other piece of game or team-related memorabilia I could find. I even saved concert ticket and movie ticket stubs. After a while, all of that started to add up, so I had to get it organized. BCW makes many different sizes of pocket pages that will fit almost any “non-card” collectible you may have.

Ticket Stubs

Unfortunately, most teams and concert venues no longer issue physical tickets, so unless you keep your “print at home” ticket, you won’t have that memento that reminds you of who you saw and when. That hasn’t made vintage ticket stubs any less collectible, though, so it pays to take care of them and put them into pages and three-ring albums. 

Pages for non-standard-sized cards tend to work best for ticket stubs. The pockets in Pro 8-Pocket Pages measure 2-5/8″ x 4″ and are perfect for oldschool “Ticketmaster-type” tickets that have the counterfoil – that is, the part that the venue tears off and keeps – removed along the perforation. Since these tickets were usually printed horizontally, they look great when stored in 8-Pocket Pages.

The more colorful team-issued tickets usually have a vertical design and fit nicely into Pro 6 Pocket Pages, which can hold stubs up to 2-1/2″ x 5-1/2″.

By the early 2000s, most tickets had bar codes printed on them and were scanned instead of torn. These larger tickets – as well as older tickets that are still intact – won’t fit into 6-Pocket Pages; for those, use BCW’s Pro 4-Pocket Currency Pages, which horizontally hold items up to 2-5/8” by 6-1/8”.

For larger, special event or commemorative tickets, you will probably need to use Pro 4-Pocket Photo Pages, which measure 3-1/2” by 5-1/4”. Fortunately, you can buy any of these pages in packs of 20 and don’t need to “commit” to a box of 100.

Finally, items like movie tickets or slightly smaller “torn” ticket stubs with the counterfoil removed will fit into Pro 9-Pocket Pages, though admittedly, they are easier to read or peruse when stored horizontally in Pro 8-Pocket Pages.

Pocket Schedules & Other Memorabilia

What is true for trading cards is also true for pocket schedules; the older it is, the more valuable it can be, especially if it is in great condition. And while ticket stubs are becoming a thing of the past, teams still print pocket schedules. Schedules are usually are a bit larger than trading cards, so Pro 8-Pocket Pages – designed to hold slightly-larger vintage sports cards – usually do the trick.

Unfortunately, there is no standard size for schedules, so you may need to use a combination of Pro 4-Pocket, Pro 6-Pocket, Pro 8-Pocket Pages and Pro 9-Pocket Pages for your collection.

But what if you have schedules that have not been folded? It would be a shame to crease such pristine items, just to make them fit into a pocket. Fortunately, BCW has those covered too. Pro 2-Pocket Envelope Pages have two pockets measuring 4-1/8″ x 9-1/2″ and can hold most quad-fold schedules. These pages are also perfect for items like all-star voting ballots. Tri-fold schedules that are unfolded can fit in either Pro 2-Pocket Photo Pages or Pro 3-Pocket Currency Pages.

Large items up to 8-1/2” x 11” such as game rosters, lineup cards and score cards can be stored in Pro 1-Pocket Document Pages. I put a Magazine Backer Board into a 1-Pocket Document Page and use that as the very first page in every three-ring album, which helps keep the pages straight when the album is being put on or removed from a shelf. I also use a 1-Pocket Document Page with a Magazine Board as “section dividers” for my collection to separate my pocket schedules and ticket stubs by sport.

Ticket stubs and pocket schedules are a great way to hang onto some of your fondest memories. Taking good care of these small treasures will keep them as nice as the day you had those memorable experiences.

Besides cards, what type of sports memorabilia to you collect? How do you store and display these items? Leave a comment and let us know.

Sal Barry is the webmaster of the hockey collectibles site PuckJunk.com. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @puckjunk.