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CatThere are a couple of things to consider. First, you seem to have an appreciation for higher grade cards. If you focus on players, high grades are not always available. I have many low grade cards, many of which are extremely difficult to upgrade. How are you going to feel if you have cards that look like some of mine shown below? They are pretty rough, but finding higher grades is not easy.
Second, if you get a lot of satisfaction out of “completion,” you may find that there is never a feeling of completion when you collect players. In a sense, there never seems to be and end point when collecting players unless you map out exactly what you want your collection to be when it is “complete.”
If those things don’t bother you, then a player focus is going to give you a lot of satisfaction. As others have said, at least you won’t be using funds on marginal players (it has to be a little frustrating to hand over a small stack of $100 bills for a PSA 8 Benny Bengough 33 Goudey card when in fact his career stats add up to approximately one good year for Piazza).
I don’t do sets…only players and mostly a focus on rookies or their “primary card.” I don’t know if this takes more or less time than set collecting, but if you are partially doing both types of collecting, then obviously you are investing huge amounts of time. Personally, I am trying to cut down on the time I spend collecting. It is my personal belief that player collecting, as apposed to set collecting, is a bit more difficult because you may spend several months collecting the 33 Goudeys, as an example, and learn about and know that set very well (prices of commons, variations if any, printing nuances, you may have pop reports memorized, etc, etc.) but with player collecting you are constantly looking at cards of different sets and that homework never stops. I feel like I am always on a steep learning curve. I learned so much about the M101-4/5 and then went several months without looking at another M101-4/5 card, so then I had to go back and brush up when a new purchase was about to be made. Focusing on a certain set, probably avoids this time consuming part of collecting.
