[molenick]

If I recall correctly, it is a term borrowed from coin collecting, where the idea was to get one example of every different "type" of coin based on the design and denomination (and sometimes broken into centuries as well). As a kid, I had an album with slots for collecting Lincoln pennies and an album for collecting type coins.

But with coins, it's a little more straightforward because it's pretty well defined. There are only so many designs a penny, nickel, dime, etc. has had (not to mention half cents, two-cent pieces, three-cent nickel, three-cent silver, etc.). I guess the main question was whether you were also going to do colonials and commemoratives (and whether you could afford gold coins as well...I don't think my album had slots for gold coins).

But with baseball cards, there are "standard" issues like Goudey, Topps, Bowman, etc. and thousands of regional or one-off issues, plus the question of, what is a "card". I am a type collector to some degree but only for cards that I want a type of....mostly T and E cards, and the cards that are not T or E, but look or feel like T and E cards (e.g. D359, M116, Tango Egg). I do have an occasional V122 or F50 but that's based more on opportunity (e.g., the card came up in an auction and I liked the look of it). I don't go into the 19th century and I don't go beyond the 30's for any type card. Also, I limit it to collecting one of each catalog number...if I have one T207 I have that type...I don't need every cigarette brand.

It's a self-defined endeavor for me which basically amounts to getting a nice example from sets I like the look of from the era I like to collect. I cannot afford, nor am I interested, in having an example of a card from every possible set. I think even people looking for "every card" have some limits (e.g., a date cut-off, it must be made of cardboard to be a "card", major league only, no strip cards, etc.).