General Forum

This is one of those threads a wish could have a poll attached.  Personally I'm a set collector but I find I encouter more individual player collectors than anything else.  Part of why I think there are so few set collectors is that many people don't want to lug around checklists.  For those of us who have discovered this site, it's easy to bring up your checklists on your phone where ever you go but there are many collectors who just don't know of this site yet.  That's one of two reasons I spread the word everywhere I can.  The other being I want more people who collect non sports cards to trade with.

My experience on this site is that the order of popularity goes 1. player collectors, 2. team collectors and 3. set builders.

Myself I am a player collector and a [base] set builder, but only so I can sell the sets once completed.

I believe there is still a mix. I started collecting in the late 70s so I am still a set collector and a lot of what I collect is still considered inexpensive. As more higher end products and more and more brands came out I think new collectors started focusing on team collecting. Now days with the variety of high end product and cost there are more player collectors of modern stuff. In the end I am suggesting that the best route may be determined by what era the cards are from and what cost bucket they fall into.

I've been under the impression that us old school set builders are a small minority now, compared to rookie/player/team collectors.  Excluding the flippers and anyone who collects for resale value, I think that's still true, even though I can't imagine how you would collect all the stuff for someone like Mike Trout or Jeter.  I'm always thankful to find dime and quarter boxes for singles and inserts or cheap commons since most modern collectors are after mojo hits and just the big names.

Team collector here... San Diego Padres.

I am a mix of all three I guess. I love building sets but stay away from the newer sets because way too many sp,ssp and RC sp's in the modern sets, a great example is the Diamond Kings baseball set for this year on top of 3 different Rc subsets you have a 40 card short print set and a 75 card base set or the 2021 Panini contenders football with a 100 card base and a 179 (without variations) autograph base set.  I also collect any Seattle based sports team past and present for my team collectiong and my player collection is Shohei Ohtani in baseball, Tim Teabow in football and anything batman in nonsport (includes sets)

I think as the way cards have been printed have changed, colletors have changed. I don't think there are as many set collectors these days because the possibility of completing most sets has gone away. There are a few that people can complete, and they usually go after those, but who really can complete all of the sets that are out there these days? So, people shift their focus to teams and/or players. I definitely think there has been an upswing in the team/player collectors over the last 20+ years compared to how it was back in the 70s/80s and even into the 90s (when completing all the sets became difficult for the kids and those who were not independently wealthy).

I agree whole-heartedly with this (and most of what has been said here).

I am by no means a veteran but when I started as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s we all collected sets. For the rugby/rugby league/cricket we collected most of my firends were not worried who the player was or what team they were in, if they needed the card to get closer to set completion then it was desired. (I do remember one friend trading nearly all his cards to me for a full "set" of the Brisbane Broncos players. After I added his cards to my duplicates I nearly had another entire full set so I was pretty happy with that! He, was the exception not the rule, however.)

As collecting (and the world ie internet, ease of international post/courier etc) has moved on I feel there is so much more variety so more focus is needed.

I struggled with this for years before recently settling on player collecting as my primary goal.

I don't do either. For me it's just Toronto Maple Leaf goalie cards as well as the odd player( with some going to friends or family members). Helps keep the PC manageable, but that also leaves me with a lot less trading possiblilites. So there is that downside to it.

I like both-

set builder in vintage, and team collector in vintage and modern

mark