If you’ve done even a bit of electronics, the chances are that you’ve already amassed a hefty collection of resistors. Buying them is fun but finding the right values from a stack of resistors is not. I noticed that you can buy actual “resistor folders” with nice labels and the full E24 series of 1500 resistors for $100. I already had resistors so I decided to make my own folder with less expense.

I walked into the nearest book store and quickly found a promising offering: 10 transparent plastic sheets of “collectible card holders” for about 3€. Any store having binders and associated supplies will probably have something similar. I also bought a thin A4 binder and 200+ label stickers for about 9.90€ total (about 1:1 to dollar prices). Here’s what I came home with (already added the stickers):

Each sheet had 9 pockets so for 3€ I get storage for 90 values, and 10-20 resistors fit into a pocket without making the page too heavy. I labeled the first 72 based on my E12 series and that left me with 2 extra pages for “exotic” resistor values. Here’s the first page of E12:

Only issue with the solution is that if you turn the folder upside down or even tilt it too much, the resistors fall off and it’s pain to put them back in. Either handle carefully or double pack the resistors in small plastic bags with corresponding values! Here’s the final result:

This solution actually makes it a joy to fetch a resistor value – “Wow, I have such an organized collection of resistors!” Now if only I had the discipline to put the 30+ resistors I’ve clipped to breadboard size back…