Who is the most collected player of all time?

[Matthew H]

I'd say Mickey Mantle too. There's plenty of his cards to go around. It still takes a special buyer to afford to seriously collect ruth cards.

[RCMcKenzie]

Bra,

It's not close. It's Babe Ruth. Normal people have no idea who any of those people are.

[CW]

Michael Jordan.

He played baseball to, ya know.

[glchen]

According to the PSA Set Registry:

Mickey Mantle - 166
Roberto Clemente - 138
Hank Aaron - 111
Willie Mays - 100

Other notables:

Nolan Ryan 87
Pete Rose 74
Cal Ripken 54
Babe Ruth - 19
Ty Cobb - 18
Honus Wagner - 3

Of course, this isn't a completely accurate picture because for some players like Ruth, most collectors usually just want 1-2 copies of that player because his cards are so expensive, so they would not attempt to collect the entire player set.

[chris6net]

Mantle

[Bored5000]

I think the answer is Ruth, although I think Shoeless Joe Jackson is definitely ahead of several of the other choices on the list.

[Pinstriper780]

No question it's Mantle, he's in a category of his own when it comes to collectors. Seems like every collector, no what era they focus on, wants at least one piece from Mickey.

[dabigyankeeman]

Absolutely Mantle if you count the ton of cards that have produced of him by Topps in the last 15 years. You have baby boomers like me collecting the old originals and the young people going after thousands of newer cards, and the popularity of The Mick is insane.

[deadballfreaK]

Originally Posted by Matthew H

I'd say Mickey Mantle too. There's plenty of his cards to go around. It still takes a special buyer to afford to seriously collect ruth cards.

Mantle for sure. Way more available. Maybe not as desirable. Ruth was the better player.

[steve B]

And here I was trying to figure it out based on adding in set collectors and general collectors.

Nearly everyone wants a Ruth card, but unless it's one of the modern ones there aren't that many around.
The more current players have more cards, both more different cards, and more cards total.

I'd have to go with Mantle. There was that whole insert set with one for each home run. I think there was a similar insert for Bonds though....

And for total cards, Ryan was in all those massively overproduced sets in the late 80's and early 90's....

Steve B

[39special]

I say Mantle.I collect post war,but if I was gonna get a pre war it would be a Cobb before a Ruth.But thats just me.

[Peter_Spaeth]

What does most collected mean? The number of jeter arod griffey jordan cards submitted to grading services dwarfs mantle

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

What does most collected mean? The number of jeter arod griffey jordan cards submitted to grading services dwarfs mantle

That is a great point. There is no right answer to the question posed; A lot of it depends on how you define "most collected." Griffey's '89 Upper Deck card alone has been submitted to PSA for grading over 56,000 times; there are 4,493 items in the Griffey master set list at PSA.

[MBMiller25]

I'm going to agree with Chuck, I think world-wide, its got to be Michael Jordan.

[the 'stache]

I'd agree on Jordan, but I'd assumed he was restricting the discussion to baseball players, as baseball was the lone sport represented in his poll.

[EGreenwood]

Pre-War - Ruth
Post-War - Mantle
Modern - Ripken, Griffey Jr., Jeter, Ichiro
Current - I have no idea

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by EGreenwood

Pre-War - Ruth
Post-War - Mantle
Modern - Ripken, Griffey Jr., Jeter, Ichiro
Current - I have no idea

Current I'd say Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Miguel Cabrera. Joey Votto's also highly collected.