One piece of advice for a vintage collector starting out

[steve B]

The advice of course needs to match the person and the goal.

Is the goal eventual profit? And if so, how soon. Like will they abandon the hobby and cash out in 5 years? 10? 20?

Is the goal finding less common things that maybe aren't all that pricy? Lots of sets are harder than they seem at first, even team sets

Or maybe finding things that represent the era they were made in historically? Like a really nice example or two of say one card from each decade 1880's till 1940's.

I've collected, at times more at times less, for 40-50 years. With that much time, even some of my worse buys look at least acceptable, while some of my sales/trades look pretty bad.

I've mostly been an opportunistic collector, picking up interesting things now and then.
My wife finally summed it up, saying I enjoyed the hunt more than the catching.
Would I have done much better financially if I had some focus, or concentrated on HOF players or higher grade cards? Yes, and a do regret that a bit. But I think I wouldn't have had as much fun, or learned as much.

So my advice would be to collect what you want the way you want. Focus on the enjoyment, and the rest will work out.