Collecting: The Journey or the Destination

[argpdt]

Recently I have been thinking a lot about my very large card collection and what my focus is or should be. I started collecting when I was 7 or 8 years old, which is about 40 years ago now. Like many people, I stopped collecting during my college and early career years, only to start up again about 20 years ago. I have many complete sets from baseball (oldest 1965 Topps), football (oldest 1950 Bowman) and basketball (oldest 1969 Topps). My collection ranges from a few 1887 Old Judges, 60+ T206 and many other pre war raw and graded baseball cards through football rookies, autographs and jersey cards from as recently as this year.

What this post is really about is what is more appealing, the collecting of cards or the owning of them.

I find that as soon as I complete a project/goal, I am already in progress on another goal. I also find that I don't look through cards that I already own nearly as much as I search to buy cards that I don't have yet. I love my collection and am not looking to sell, so I don't finish a project with the intention of selling to fund the next project. I would much rather build a set than buy a set and I do like owning the set once completed.

Years ago I completed a run of regular issued LA Rams cards from 1948 Bowman through all 1992 issued sets (and most of the oddball items from those years too). Late last year I completed my goal of owning at least one card of every MLB Hall of Famer, who has at least one card issued post 1900. I have also completed many baseball and football player regular issue checklists over the years. Not being wealthy, I have to stay within a monthly collecting budget, so for now $500 cards are out of reach (i.e. T206 Cobb, 1933 Goudey Ruth/Gehrig, 1935 National Chicle Nagurski, etc.). I focus on acquiring what I find interesting in a condition that I can afford.

Current Projects:
T206 Brooklyn team set (need 12)
T206 Card of Each Hall of Famer (minus Wagner and Plank)
Hank Greenberg master set
Nap Rucker master set
1952 Bowman Large Football (need 7 short prints)
1952 Bowman Small Football (need 22)
1955 Topps Dodgers (need Roebuck and Snider)
Acquisition of any pre war Hall of Fame baseball cards that I don't have

I apologize for the long thread here, and this may have been covered before I joined Net54, but I am curious to hear fellow collectors thoughts about the hunt versus ownership.