How Orderly is your Card Collecting? What is your Scatter Factor?

[Gorditadogg]

Some people's collections are pretty focused and they spend a lot of time finding just what they want. Others have collecting habits that are a little more random or all-encompassing, and are apt to chase down rabbit holes from time to time.

One way to measure this is to take the total value of your collection and divide it by your most expensive card. Let's call this your Scatter Factor, because the higher the number, the more "unconcentrated" or scattered your collecting habits are. For example if your collection is worth $10,000 and your most expensive card is $2000, then your Scatter Factor is 5, meaning you have a pretty focused collection.

My Scatter Factor is 30, which I am thinking is a little on the high side, but I am interested to see how that compares to others.

[skelly423]

I'm in the process of tidying things up. I have a bunch of random cards and partial sets I have accumulated from packs over the years that I'm selling. The core of my collection is two complete sets, and a handful of very nice singles.

Moving forward I plan to focus on a dozen high end key cards, and building a new set (year TBD) for the down periods when my desired key cards can't be found. I'm not there yet, but my goal is to have an entire collection that will fit in a single shoebox.

[ALR-bishop]

As a set collector of all Topps ( including variations, and test and insert issues), Bowman, Fleer sets, and some others as well, my collection is more splattered than scattered per your definition, even if divided by the two 52 Mantle variations. I know there are a lot of other set collectors here and would guess they would also have high "scatter" numbers. But I do not think personally that set collecting is an indication of an unfocused collection

[Gorditadogg]

Going for every Topps card is a pretty wide focus I would say. A clear focus no doubt but still an ambitious one.

I think set collectors will have have higher factors in general because you need to have a lot of lower priced cards. But let's say someone has a nice 52 Topps set, it might be worth $200k overall, with the Mantle $50k of it. So if that is all they had it would be a really focused collection with a Scatter Factor of 4.

[skelly423]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

I know there are a lot of other set collectors here and would guess they would also have high "scatter" numbers. But I do not think personally that set collecting is an indication of an unfocused collection

When you look at collection concentration, I would be inclined to consider a complete set as a single item. There's a clear focus on a pre-defined list of cards, and they are often organized/stored together. Not a lot of scatter, at least in my opinion.

[Jcfowler6]

Originally Posted by skelly423

When you look at collection concentration, I would be inclined to consider a complete set as a single item. There's a clear focus on a pre-defined list of cards, and they are often organized/stored together. Not a lot of scatter, at least in my opinion.

I was thinking the same thing. Then I wondered about the sets I’m currently building. About 8 different sets. It’s been a few years like that with slow adds.

I think the same way that a set is one item. But what about 2/3 complete in a binder that’s in progress?


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[toppcat]

I've gotten quite organized and far less scattershot in my collecting (and around the house even) since the pandemic began. 18 months of working from home gave me back about 15 hours a week of commuting time and I took advantage. I'm now down to two remote days of work per week before I retire and that's helped even more. I look at what I had at the beginning of 2020 vs. now and am amazed I could even find anything in my collection out side of large sets!

[Jcfowler6]

I no longer have a good idea what my collection is worth. I have become too diluted and the market has gone up a bunch quickly. But I’m a collector more than a seller. I sell sometimes but rarely do I know market value of my cards. I look up VCP occasionally if I have something to sell. This is probably my most valuable card. My guess is I have 350000 cards. But no idea the total value. It’s a problem. I am working to liquidate a lot of this stuff.




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[steve B]

Originally Posted by Jcfowler6

I no longer have a good idea what my collection is worth. I have become too diluted and the market has gone up a bunch quickly. But I’m a collector more than a seller. I sell sometimes but rarely do I know market value of my cards. I look up VCP occasionally if I have something to sell. This is probably my most valuable card. My guess is I have 350000 cards. But no idea the total value. It’s a problem. I am working to liquidate a lot of this stuff.




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I'm in the same sort of spot. Not quite as many cards, and a lower top end (I think)

There's also a bunch of stuff with a much less defined value, like the 76 Hostess yellow and greens.

[mrmopar]

I am like a carton of BBs that has spilled onto the floor! I have several fairly focused collections (Dodgers-more general all around & Steve Garvey-ultra focused), but then I might just be picking up anything randomly if the desire presents itself. Non-sport, other sport, vintage, new, oddball, odd sized, non-flat...you name it.

I could not come up with a solid value of my stuff if I had to, but I believe my most expensive card is probably still a Leaf Robinson RC, which shot up pretty high there for a while, but has settled back down.

[Casey2296]

My scatter factor is 5. I built a very specific list of cards I wanted that covered 100 years of baseball. I'm not a set collector but Leon and his pre-war henchmen inspired me to collect two sets. E98 Master Set, 3 cards short and E94 hi grade set, 4 cards short. All good stuff and a great post.

[rugbymarine]

Very interesting question.

My scatter factor is about 15, which I think is is the lower side (but that's just a hunch). In the last 6-7 years, I've worked on being more focused and intentional on what I collect. I used to work on sets, and lose focus, only to sell off the set at 75% complete.

My brain is wired such that I like to collect sets, but I'm not great at finishing 200-800 card company sets, so now I typically collect player sets and some HOF RC. That's been a good compromise for me.

[bnorth]

I can't get you any fancy numbers but I can post one corner of my card room. Yes all those big boxes are full of cards and the rest of the room looks similar.

[Empty77]

I appreciate this concept, as I have thought for a while it would be cool to have some sort of collecting statistics akin to the on-field statistics for players.

But while this one may work in some scenarios, there is something keeping it from being universal because it doesn't work it my situation. Mine is an easy test case because I am a player collector exclusively and limited to nearly just one, so it would seem I should have a scatter factor near to 1, but the math as is works out to 16, which seems antithetical to the spirit of the initial post.

So similar to the conundrum of how to account for company sets (and I agree it seems most sensible to take each together as a 'single' item), it seems the same should apply to a player set.

So instead of taking the value of a literally single item I instead take the value of that entire single-player segment of my collection, then divided into the total I get 1.05. That number does seem more representative of the reality in my case and more in keeping with the spirit of the meaning for 'scatter factor' as I interpreted it in the OP.

I realize it's much easier in my situation to estimate the $ numbers since my collection is comparatively much smaller by volume than the average, and so also easier to keep track of because it is focused, and that instead, the initial equation was meant to be a quick way for a more complex collection to estimate itself. I'm just suggesting we could trial enhancements to the equation to perhaps make it more meaningfully universal.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I can't get you any fancy numbers but I can post one corner of my card room. Yes all those big boxes are full of cards and the rest of the room looks similar.

Reminds me of my own main card collecting room, only yours is way more organized and less crowded than mine. LOL

As for the idea of coming up with some way to measure and quantify what the OP terms as a "scatter-factor", not so sure the proposed methodology will really tell you much of anything important or useful, and it definitely doesn't tell you anything about how focused someone's collection is. The idea of coming up with a "scatter-factor" formular also kind of implies you can then measure and compare one collector's supposed focus to that of another, which I don't see how the OP's formula will ever do.

First off, what does the value of cards have to do with one's collecting focus? Different cards can have way different values, yet they can all be part of someone's collection focus. Whether you collect just the '88 Donruss set, or all main Topps base sets from '52 through the current year.

Secondly, if you use your single, most valuable card value as the denominator in your "scatter-factor" formula, you are basing everything on a single card, which makes no sense at all. Say I had a collection of 1,000 cards worth $50,000, with my most valuable card worth $2,500. I'd have an average value per card of $50, and per your formula a "scatter-factor" of 20. And lets also say my collecting focus was to collect just the oversized main Topps card sets from '52 to '56, and every one of the 1,000 cards I had collected so far was a card from one of those first five years of Topps sets. So therefore in fact, my collection was at that point 100% focused on my collecting goal. Now lets say I came into some money and suddenly had the chance to acquire a really nice '52 Topps Mantle for $50,000, so I grabbed it. Well now my collection has 1,001 cards, which are all still 100% part of my collecting focus, but now my average value has approximately doubled to about $100 per card, while my "scatter-factor" has dropped to 2. So explain to me how by buying just one single card it can supposedly cause such a dramatic change to my collecting focus, especially when every single card I own is definitely still part of my collecting focus, even after buying the '52 Mantle.

And thirdly, take my original situation before buying the '52 Mantle. Lets say I didn't even buy another card, but suddenly the value of my most expensive card increased from $2,500 to $52,500 (which isn't that far fetched with what has happened during this pandemic). Again, my average value per card doubles to about $100, and my "scatter-factor" per the OP's formula again drops to about 2. So explain to me how I don't even buy or sell anything, and yet my collecting focus still dramaticaly changes suddenly.

Sorry to say, but for measuring the focus of one's collection, and then being able to compare it to others, the OP's formula is pretty much useless.

Maybe a better way to achieve what the OP is looking for is to first determine exactly what your collecting goals/focus actually is/are, be it sets, teams, players, HOFers, rookies, etc., or any or all combinations. And then figure out how many of those cards you have that match and go towards completing/fulfilling those collecting goals/focus. And then divide that number by the total number of all cards you own to determine the percentage of your collection that is truly part of your collecting goals/focus. In my examples above, the 1,000 cards (1,001 when you add the '52 Mantle) owned were all part of the collecting goal/focus, so the focus factor was always at 100%. Though by no means a perfect measure, I think this is much closer to what the OP was trying to come up with, and something that can more meaningfully be compared among collectors. You'll still have questions and issues though, like how do you account for duplicates, or what if you suddenly lose interest in something you formerly focused on, but don't anymore. And of course there's always the person that collects whatever they like and catches their fancy. Even though they are the poster child for, and definition of, a non-focused and ultimate scatter collector, if they truly only collect what they like and have an interest in, then technically they are 100% focused with their collection and its goals.

[mrmopar]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I can't get you any fancy numbers but I can post one corner of my card room. Yes all those big boxes are full of cards and the rest of the room looks similar.

I become a little overwhelmed when I go into my card storage area. I'd say that for the last 2+ decades, my focus has been on obtaining only items I like. Value didn't play a factor, other than to allow me to buy or trade for what I could afford. I stopped buying packs and boxes and shifted to only buying sure things, aside from a random lot here and there. When I go to a show or shop, same result. It's not that I was buying collections or anything early on, I was just as apt to buy a box of the latest issue and maybe a few singles. Now, it would be more like a handful of singles and a few oddball items/small sets and that is it.

However, I just like too many things. I don't discriminate between vintage or new, singles or sets (smaller sets usually), mainstream or oddball. I collect just about anything/everything Dodgers, but will add a Yankee or Giant just as enthusiastically. Baseball is my primary interest, but have dabbled into other sports and even some non-sport as well. I like autographs & smaller memorabilia (cans, cups, figures, etc - storage factor) as well.

Clearly my focus has lead to a collection that is perfect for me, so I imagine someone like me walking into a shop loaded with my stuff, figuring they'd be amazed!

The overwhelming feelings I get are mainly coming from imagining how I could dismantle something like this that I've worked many years to assemble. I might open a few boxes and find 100s of items that I bought individually and are now together, but should not be sold as a group! I really don't even know where I would start. I don't want to burden my wife or kids with it, but in reality, I would like to be separated from the process so I can't interfere.

[Hxcmilkshake]

Ha! I'm like a 20. But I knew I was scattered collecting all 4 sports, sets going back to 1955, UCONN autos, Yankees etc

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[Eric72]

I took a few moments to think about this. At the end of the process, I pegged my "scatter factor" number at about 50.

I have some decent cards: '56 Mantle; Gretzky Rookie; SP Jeter, etc. What I don't have is the one card, that jaw-dropping centerpiece to my collection.

I've spread things out through the years, never getting hyper-focused. In this respect, I've done well (or horribly, depending on your point of view) at putting together a collection.

[butchie_t]

Place a target at 50 yards. Shoot a 12-gauge shotgun with #4 shot and an unmodified choke and examine the shot pattern. That is my scatter pattern for cards…too.

[Exhibitman]

I didn't know there would be math...

I don't know what the scatter factor is but I call my collection "The Festival of Bric A Brac" so that probably gives you some idea.

Physically, which is what I thought when I read the title, my collection is very well curated. Everything ends up in albums or boxes. I can pretty much find anything in a minute or two, except the really good stuff at the SDB.