Advice on Collecting

[Iron_man]

Hey guys, looking for a little bit of advice / thoughts on collecting.

So I'm starting to get back into collecting and I'm focused on buying HOF-RC-Graded (PSA) cards. And I know this is a baseball forum but I'm looking at baseball, basketball and football cards.

I'm buying these just for my PC and enjoyment not for investment per se, but with the amount of money you start to spend it does turn into an investment to a degree.

What I'm really, really struggling with is what grade to get. For example a 1981 Montana rookie do you spend $500 on a PSA-9 or $200-300 for a PSA-8? Do you spend $350 for a Bob Gibson-RC PSA-6 or spend $500+ for a PSA-7? Do you spend $300 for a Maris-RC PSA-6 or $500+ for a PSA-7?

So basically long term do you think I will be better off spending the extra money now to get higher grades (nothing too crazy not the PSA 10 that goes for $XX,XXX) but the higher end stuff that is not too crazy expensive or do I just get the upper middle stuff that is still really nice but priced a little more reasonable?

I would just hate to look back 10-20-30 years from now on some of this stuff and wish I had purchased the better grade because it has gone up a lot more than the middle range stuff. Or maybe it all goes up a slow steady X% over time. Or maybe the hobby tanks and this stuff turns out to be almost worthless.

I know I'm posing a question that is almost impossible to answer, but just looking for any opinions or thoughts anyone may have. Again I'm just struggling with this and would like to have a better feel before I really starting buying stuff.

Thanks so much for the help!!