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Just fishing for ideas here...I want to collect a card of every guy with a card (in sports I collect).  Would the most logical way to track this be to enter one card of each guy I have into a collection on this site?  I know that would produce a list of players on the My Collection screen.  Pen and paper seems like a nightmare.  I know there are others who collect similarly.

Never mind.  This project goes on hold until I replace my computer.

I know that you can view your collection by player, so I would think that no matter how many cards you have of a certain player their name would show up, thus letting you know they're in your collection. Now, if you are wanting to collect one of each baseball player, for example, and keep them all in a set of binders, and want to know which card of, say, Buster Posey, is in said binder collection, that may be a little more difficult.

I suppose you could make a list, but that could get lengthy. You can also add notes to individual cards in your collection. Not sure if any of this helps; just spitballing some ideas back your way!

Jason

That would be a tremendous task in any sport! Not really with getting the cards, but keeping track of who you have and who you need. Just getting a list together of every player to have a card would be very time-consuming.

The easiest way I can think of to track that would be to TYPE up a list in ABC order of everyone you already have and then just add names in as you get them. No paper & pen, just a digital file (make sure to have a back-up copy though). That wouldn't give you a wantlist of players though.

I have done it and am still doing it I guess ............ I have a binder of over well over 100 pages. Every single player to ever be connected to the Oilers. It was VERY time consuming. I also have evey Rookie Card listed for them, if no RC then every printed card, or whatever, for them right down to junior team. Trust me you need to be commited to the cause. I started my list back in the early 90s and have never stopped updating it. UGH

Yeah, the more I think about it, I've come to the conclusion that I'm completely out of my mind for even considering this.  I put about 20 cards in my collection and just about ripped all my hair out.  My tablet is slow, my computer is slower, and I hate making lists.  Maybe this topic will bury itself quick.

I did have one idea that might at least give a starting point. If, again using the baseball example, one considers that Topps has the only license, you could start with 2017 flagship. I'm noticing that most of their other sets (Bunt, GQ, A&G) contain most of the same mainstream players. So theoretically, you could knock out a large chunk of players using flagship sets, then start working backwards to players who had their last cards in 2016 flagship, 2015, etc. Certainly not foolproof and definitely incredibly difficult but it could be a starting point. 

A bit different but I have always though about a binder representing a different flagship card from each company for each year. That's gotten a little easier over the years as companies like Upper Deck and Fleer gave disappeared from baseball, but that could be a fun project too.

Billy Kingsley would be a good member to discuss with if you wanted to pursue this project. I know he is currently doing this with basketball and racing and will eventually do hockey as well.

This hobby is supposed to be FUN! Don't wreck it for yourself.

Personally, I wouldn't even try getting one card of every driver for my favorite NASCAR team. And the team only has 4-5 cars for every year. One of those cars had the same driver for 23 years and my current favorite driver has been in the same car for 15 years now. On top of that, several drivers I already collect have driven a car for that team (four of them drove the #5 car at some point). I probably already have half of the drivers for the entire existence of the whole team, but I still wouldn't chase the rest. I just don't want to add that to my current goals. That would eventually open a whole new can of worms where I would want crew chief cards and pit crew cards.

I also wouldn't attempt to get a card of every football player that ever signed a contract with the Carolina Panthers and they've only been around since 1995. It just sounds more like a task than a collection to me.

No way on the planet that I would attempt to get a card of every STL Cardinals MLB player ever! I'm just talking teams here, not the whole sport. It just seems impossible (and/or very expensive)!

Good call Spaz.  Keep it fun.  I think that, subconsciously, I was actually looking for someone to talk me out of my idea.  I never honestly thought I could achieve one card of everyone.  It was more about having a way of knowing when I did actually add a new player to my collection.  My blaster box of Topps update had tons of rookies, and I figure most of them, I never had a card of before, but I don't know which ones.

Since set building isn't really a viable option anymore, this is where I've moved towards more and more, and I love it! It's allowed me to be more of a historian than a simple collector. I keep track of who I have on Excel, and who I'm missing with a page on Cardboard History. Most of them are easy to find. The ones who were regional only are the tough ones. If I had more money to spend on the hobby I could knock out at least a third of the missing NBA players in an hour...but I've determined that the medicine that keeps me alive is more important. 

NASCAR was easier to do, but then I hit a proverbial wall of cards I simply couldn't find even though they are base cards and shouldn't be rare. I think it may be the case that being base cards many people can't be bothered to list them. Before Panini got the license, I had the NASCAR list down to under 30 people, but Panini has done a good job with the sport and the list is climbing. Combined with my lack of available cash to spend ...I average about $25 a month on my hobbies...split between three sports, non-sports and other hobbies not related to trading cards...that's not too shabby. 

The NHL is going to be a bigger challenge and probably less likely to be completed. Consider that the NHL has been getting cards since the 1920s, two decades before the NBA and NASCAR were even founded, and have had a much better representation on cardboard, it seems daunting. I have not made the list of who is missing yet...there's still so many that every pack I open, every gift I receive, I usually get new people. For my birthday last week my mom gave me factory boxes of both 1990-91 and 1991-92 Upper Deck series 2 and some other cards...and I got 88 new people. I'm going to wait until I have a bigger collection before I even consider compiling that info. I will probably wait until I finish scanning all the NBA cards in my collection that need scans, likely sometime next year. I had already crossed the 75,000 mark for the NBA when I compilied who was missing..I have not even hit 8000 NHL cards yet and the NHL is already only about 800 people below the total number of people in my NBA collection, so I know it's going to be daunting.

How I get the info is quite labor intensive. I have to click on literally every name I'm not sure of on here, see if they actually got cards in the sport I'm collecting, and see if I have any. Basketball took me a week. Hockey will likely take much longer. I can't just use the list of names on here as a checklist, for example, back to the NBA, players who only got college cards don't count. WNBA don't count for the scope of this project, except the ones who got cards in USA basketball sets. The CBA cards of the 80s and early 90s don't count for the scope of the project, nor do the international players. I don't collect college cards but I do collect the others...just not counted as part of the scope of my NBA project. Likewise for auto racing...I collect Indy, drag etc. But they aren't relevant to my NASCAR names project. 

If you want to do the NBA...I can help you. I have literally thousands more cards available for trading than I have listed on here. Same with NASCAR. 

Spaz...I could probably knock out all of Hendrick Motorsports Cup drivers for you, minus Alex Bowman and possibly Tim Richmond and Rob Moroso, in one bubble mailer. Say the word and I'll do it. Not all may appear in Hendrick uniforms though.