One piece of advice for a vintage collector starting out

[Leon]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

I went to a card show last week and met up with a few collectors. One brought their younger son (20s) who is just getting into vintage collecting. He previously collected high end modern, but recently switched to vintage.

He asked us to give him one piece of advice from our years of collecting. One guy said “you can’t go wrong with prewar”. Another said “focus on star rookies first”.

My advice (which I stated on the board before) is “the good stuff doesn’t go down in price. Buy it as soon as you can”.

What would be your one piece of advice to this collector?

My one piece of advice, don't buy high grade cards with small borders. I look at some of these graded cards, nowadays, and ask myself where did the borders go??
.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Leon

My one piece of advice, don't buy high grade cards with small borders. I look at some of these graded cards, nowadays, and ask myself where did the borders go??
.

You and I both know the answer to that question.

[LEHR]

My advice to anyone starting out would be:

1. Decide what you like and collect that. Not what's hot or trendy.
2. Buy the highest grade/best condition you can afford. And I don't mean just the number on a flip. When you decide to sell in 20-30 years, or your descendants in 80 years, condition sells.

[Snowman]

Buy centered cards

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Buy centered cards

+1 and preferably with big borders!!

[Ray Van]

Since this person is coming from modern to vintage, one key piece of advice is that vintage moves at a different (slower) pace vs modern. It's a "buy and hold" versus a "buy to flip" mentality. That is tough to overcome if you're not used to it. Similar to blue chip stocks versus penny stocks. It's a completely different mindset so you need to be aware of that.

[nebboy]

+1 to Ray Van analogy