General Forum

AsI read this thread, I had already figured out my reply and then V3 beat me to it.  The things I enjoy in this hobby - inserting cards into a set binder slowly seeing the pages fill up till that last one is finally had and inserted, recently 1977 Topps thanks to grote. Second is finding an elusive card of one of my PC. And third is finding a good deal on a large lot of baseball cards and sorting through them either to fill sets or my PC.

This site gave me a fourth enjoyment.

Although I may not be singing, I am the guy with the shy humming in the pew. I do love a good sermen (thanks to the Revvv) though. I am a oddball of sorts, nothing gets more excited than ripping a hobby box to shreds wondering what might be lurking. However, I only collect OPC sets but am not that good at completeing them ..... yet. The SP RCs "urine" me off to no end. I like base sets so I guess I have to consider the RCs as a bonus. As an SP is not a base card plain and simple. If and when I get them so be it. Also love the giddy feeling when a Ranford gets plucked from the heavens and lands safely in my office. Only so many more that are gettable though sadly. Damned 1 of 1s. UGH. Finally, I do love a good deal, but have never been brave enough to go for a huge lot, but do play the eBay creeper and bid on cards that are at zero bids with five minutes left. Just my LCS though as they waive the shipping for me. I love finding what I might pluck from the sales floor that was inside the glass for $10 that I snagged for $1.30. Hehehe. Not really a rant here but I do agree that the state of the hobby is aimed for quick thrills and big payouts. They seem to listen more to the shop owners than the collector, unless of course he is a $10000 a month client.

I suppose I'm at a loss as to what people are interested in collecting anymore. I'm an old school guy. I started with the goal of collecting every Cubs card. Then the late 90's hit and that pretty much went out the window. First just Topps/OPC, then add Donruss and Fleer, Sportflics, Score then Bowman returns with Upper Deck. And then it explodes, every company has multiple releases. Then we start with chase cards and multiple parallel sets. That's not good enough so we make artificial short prints. It's mind boggling. I'm pretty solid on Cubs pre 1996 or so. The last 20 years.... pretty much just Topps base cards. I don't even know how brick and mortar stores survive anymore. It has to be on retail product and I'm not sure what the margin can be on that. I tried finding some basic Topps cards I needed with zero luck at local stores. They don't even look like they're set up to sell singles from sets. Random cards are stored haphazardly in monster boxes, no real rhyme or reason. I love the thrill of opening up a pack. Brings me back to the 60's sitting on the sidewalk corner after buying packs at the local corner store, wad of that sugary gum in mouth, sifting through cards... got em, got em, need em. There's just too much product now, much too expensive (especially for kids) with too little I care to call part of "my collection".

Guess I really need to get my for trade set up. Been spending time getting the collection and wants/needs entered in. Already at #3 for Cubs card collectors (still a lot to get put in) and that's with the last 20 years having only Topps base cards of the Cubs.

I feel much the same way, but for my sport it's different...for Topps, it does have flaws but you still get what, 700 base cards in the flagship a year? For the NBA, we got 290 this year...in a 525 man league. No short prints, no variations, no nearly half the league. And the other sets they do have mostly the same players, just less of them as the next largest set is 200 cards.

It's nearly impossible to complete most sets now, and the main sets, yes you can complete them, but even when you do, you have quite a bit of dissatisfaction because even when you complete it, it's so small it feels like only half a set. 

I realized recently that it was a contributing factor to why I walked away from the NBA in 2006. It wasn't the biggest, but it definitely played a role. The frustration got to me then. (Combined with losing my Excel collection file and some other things). Now, the frustration is even more because of the exclusive license being given to a company that just doesn't care...but this time, I adapted. Instead of walking away again, I have shifted my focus. Instead of focusing on completing sets I can never finish, or tiny disappointing sets I can, I have put all my efforts into my All-time NBA Encyclopedia. That is what I call my project of getting at least one card of every NBA person to get one. It still has frustration...players who panini ignores, missing people from before the NBA got cards regularly, regional promos I can never afford, even if they could be found...but overall it's a very rewarding project. It has allowed me to feel more like a true historian rather than just a collector, especially as I'm writing up a short biography of each person. And this is a project that I could not have done without the Trading Card Database. I literally clicked on every PID that I wasn't sure was already in my collection and figured out who I was missing. It was over 600 people when I created it. I have it down to circa 450 right now. Not bad considering I have not broken the double digit barrier for any single card. I'm also doing the same project for NASCAR and I just began the NHL in the past year. That shall be quite the challenge as they have much better representation on cardboard. I don't ever expect to finish the NHL or NBA, but it is a project I can work on for the rest of my life. NASCAR I had down to 12 people missing until panini got the license and started issuing autograph only people.

I like the best of both worlds (vintage and modern)

I do vintage set building (in lower conditions to keep cost down), and modern team collecting (mostly base, no SP to keep cost down)

so I get to taste both.

at one point, I actually focused my buying different segments of my collection for one month, then switch to another the following month to keep it different (although I would trade outsided of that area as opportunity presented itself)

Anyway...just collect what you like= whether that is new or old, base or SP, or HOF or whatever...

adjust your goals, change direction every now and then...but, most importantly....just have fun!

mark

My thoughts:

The only satisfaction I get from modern collecting is when I just treat every single card as if it is just that -- a single card.  The fact that it has a number on the back, and there are 659 similar cards with similar numbers, doesn't matter to me.  I feel no compulsion to try to acquire those other 659 cards, based only on the fact that they exist, just so I can say that I have all 660.  The SP cards are basically Topps' method of capitalizing on people with addictive natures, who have to complete a set, no matter what.  It's actually pretty brilliant on their part when you think about it, and I'm surprised it didn't start sooner.  Even though they made the 1961 Topps set, they don't make any money when you collect those now.  And since they don't make football, hockey, and basketball anymore, they need baseball collectors to keep buying 2018 Topps baseball.  All the AU and MEM cards are extras to keep a different type of collector interested.  If the base set is hard to finish, the set collectors will continue buying more of the same thing, or they will buy from people who are buying up Topps to resell those cards to the set collectors.

I would lose my mind if I were a set collector.  I just have to look at every individual card on its own merit. I guess my "set" is defined by my own parameters, and not by the little numbers that Topps and Panini and UD put on the backs of the cards.  And it will never be completed, because there will always be more cards coming out, and there will be some that I want, and others that I don't want.  But none that I "need".  It's a hobby for me, not a sickness.

I'll always be a set collector at heart and fully admit to a bit of a compulsive personality. But I control it enough to add my own definition to "set." So I can very comfortably say I have the complete "short set" of the Gypsy Queen cards. No short prints. And I have the complete sets of all Topps base cards since 1970, no short prints or variations or even update sets. But I also have the complete Merkle's Boner Set and am very happy to be going after just one interesting card from all sorts of vintage sets. But I do like a good mix of set and individual card collecting. It's not that there are too many cards out there -- I don't like that, but don't really care -- it's that I'm getting less enjoyment of out collecting the sets I used to collect because of Topps's decisions. So, despite their admittedly somewhat brilliant marketing of short prints and serial numbers and variations, they're gonna lose my current dollars soon enough. 

But I'm still having great fun with the vintage cards and a bit of fun with the modern ones. 

v3

Some nice thoughts in here. Makes me think which direction to go with my collection. I'm now somewhat of a generalist. Although I'm relatively new (started June '17) I appreciate modern cards mainly because they can have spectacular designs. E.g. I love the NBA 2017/18 Panini Status and Donruss sets. Most modern sets I find ugly though... 

The older cards I like more because they also serve as an archive to me. With the older cards I can pick one and actually take the time reading the bios and studying the stats, whereas with modern ones I tend to just admire the design. Old cards have all the stats and bios of the players I watched as a kid and before I was born. It brings back memories and sometimes you discover a player you forgot about or did not know. The card itself may be a 5 cent base card with a 'nobody' on it, but to me a complete profile of a nicely photographed player is worth more than some short print holo-laser-whatever without any information.

Where I live (Netherlands, Europe) only soccer cards are in retail and the cards that are released here have an extra dimension since they are intended to be used for online games. So there are hardly any stats and bios on cards whatsoever. It's a shame that we don't have a sports card market here at all, which makes it a quite expensive hobby as everything needs to ship from abroad and you can't sell/trade any duplicates since nobody cares. That would be my rant lol.