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Tom DI collected cards as a kid after my dad and I found a card shop in the local mall that sold older cards. From there we went to local card shows. My collection was basically the new Topps set from each year and player runs for stars that went back through their entire career. My collecting days waned when Fleer and Donruss showed up. It was just too much.
I got back into collecting with my first couple of graded cards purchased off ebay about 7 years ago. I bought a 1970 Kellogg's Bob Gibson PSA 8 and 1955 Red Man Al Rosen PSA 6. I ended up completing both the Kellogg's and Red Man set. Along the way I started a 1978 Topps PSA 9 set, but I've put it aside at about 75% complete. Someday I'll pick that up.
From there I realized that there were a few things I really enjoyed. One was searching out white border stadium postcards for the original 16 teams. That has since become a growing collection of stadium postcards from the last 100 years. I like the stadium postcards because to me the ballpark represents the game, and the game is bigger than the players. It has opened up a whole new history of the game to me through my research of ballparks. Even better, there is no set to complete since there are always more postcards out there.
The next thing I realized was that I liked creating my own projects to complete, some of which are more structured than others. I'm working on a prewar 25 card collection and a postwar one as well. This way I can add a 1973 Joe Namath and a 1974 Julius Erving, just because I like those cards. I've ended up working on a Tom Daly player set, just because he is a namesake of sorts. That has lead me to searching out different Old Judge poses. Also in there are Red Belt and Dormand postcard sets, a Lionel Carter type card set, a Yankee Retired Number type card set, and a Don Larsen perfect game lineup set. I've found that these smaller projects let me really but cards I like and not feel as if I'm just filling out a checklist. When I want that, I'll just work on a Topps Heritage set.