I like the whole process of developing a theme, hunting, finding, organizing, cataloging and learning. I especially like flipping through boxes and finding stacks to "consume". I have been interested in the all time top 100 or so players and around 2000 started a Pre-War collection of reprints & new issues of Pre-War legends. This started with Dover reprints, TCMA, Conlon, various mini-box sets, etc. and then the major brands started releases of new cards with old players. At the time this was a decent way to look for players w/o thousands of different cards (especially when I excluded the pre-War printings) but now I can't keep up with all the Ty Cobb, etc. new cards.
I have enjoyed:
* compiling various lists of top 100 or 150 all time players and selecting which Pre-War players deserve to be on my list of greatest players by position. This means they need to relatively compete with modern players so it's not top 100 pre-war.
* Learning about new players.
* Getting familiar with Pre-war cards via reprints
* inventorying the collection on PC/web
And mostly I enjoy going to shows and flipping though the <$1 boxes looking for new additions. This weekend I came home with a handful of dime box cards I like such as Pie Traynor and Paul "Big Poison" Waner (my authentic Goudey Big Poison and Little Poison cards from a trip to Pittsburgh years ago are some of my favs).
I must be far more selective in my authentic and vintage pre-war collecting due to cost which means the work/time to card purchased ratio is much different.
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