Does Anyone Still Just Collect Cards?

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Wouldn’t it be cool to just pull out an old cigar box with a stack of vintage topps cards rubber banded together and just hold them and smell that old card smell?

If you said yes, you’re a true collector. If you said no then you’re an investor! Am I right?

Well, I guess a few of us could just be "mold spore enthusiasts", too.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Wouldn’t it be cool to just pull out an old cigar box with a stack of vintage topps cards rubber banded together and just hold them and smell that old card smell?



If you said yes, you’re a true collector. If you said no then you’re an investor! Am I right?

I suspect that 90% of us are collectors that are happy our card values are going up, so that we can tell our wives we are investors.

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[BRoberts]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Wouldn’t it be cool to just pull out an old cigar box with a stack of vintage topps cards rubber banded together and just hold them and smell that old card smell?

If you said yes, you’re a true collector. If you said no then you’re an investor! Am I right?

You couldn't be more wrong. You, me, James Ingram or anyone else doesn't get to define what a "true collector" is. And though James seems to get joy from putting himself on a pedestal because he fits the definition of "collector" that he himself created, it's a hollow victory.

Actually, if elevating himself because he doesn't like graded cards and supposedly doesn't care about the value of his collection gives him joy -- and it clearly does because he posts about his perceived superiority quite often -- then good for him. He's enjoying the hobby in his own way: self-congratulation.

It is, however, a slap in the face to the countless number of collectors -- yes, collectors -- who don't fit his narrow definition.

[Luke]

I don't really get the point of trying to define what a collector is or should be. We all have different life circumstances and budgets so the things we accumulate are going to be different. If you always dreamed of owning a '52 Mantle, and now you can afford it and justify it, you have to consider the value and leave it in a graded holder.

I'm not going to make this argument because I don't think any of us are more true collectors than anyone else, but the argument could be made that the guy who owns a bunch of high value slabbed cards is "more of a collector" than the guy who has a shoebox full of $5 cards. You could argue the guy with all the big time cards actually loves cards more because he's willing to take the risk involved with spending a larger % of his money than the shoebox guy on cards because he loves them that much.

Now, I think what I just wrote is asinine, but so is inferring that the shoebox guy is more of a collector than the slabbed guy. It would be great to focus on what unites us rather than our differences.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Luke

I don't really get the point of trying to define what a collector is or should be. We all have different life circumstances and budgets so the things we accumulate are going to be different. If you always dreamed of owning a '52 Mantle, and now you can afford it and justify it, you have to consider the value and leave it in a graded holder.



I'm not going to make this argument because I don't think any of us are more true collectors than anyone else, but the argument could be made that the guy who owns a bunch of high value slabbed cards is "more of a collector" than the guy who has a shoebox full of $5 cards. You could argue the guy with all the big time cards actually loves cards more because he's willing to take the risk involved with spending a larger % of his money than the shoebox guy on cards because he loves them that much.



Now, I think what I just wrote is asinine, but so is inferring that the shoebox guy is more of a collector than the slabbed guy. It would be great to focus on what unites us rather than our differences.

Luke, I agree with everything you said.

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[homerunhitter]

Originally Posted by Luke

I don't really get the point of trying to define what a collector is or should be. We all have different life circumstances and budgets so the things we accumulate are going to be different. If you always dreamed of owning a '52 Mantle, and now you can afford it and justify it, you have to consider the value and leave it in a graded holder.

I'm not going to make this argument because I don't think any of us are more true collectors than anyone else, but the argument could be made that the guy who owns a bunch of high value slabbed cards is "more of a collector" than the guy who has a shoebox full of $5 cards. You could argue the guy with all the big time cards actually loves cards more because he's willing to take the risk involved with spending a larger % of his money than the shoebox guy on cards because he loves them that much.

Now, I think what I just wrote is asinine, but so is inferring that the shoebox guy is more of a collector than the slabbed guy. It would be great to focus on what unites us rather than our differences.

very, very excellent and eye opening points. After reading your posts a couple times over and over. I agree with you 110% my friend. Very Well said! Thank you!

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Like a lot of people on the board, I’ve busted my ass my whole life, working like a dog, nights, weekends, etc, and now I am at the point where this hobby brings me a lot of joy and it’s about me doing something for me, not for family, not for friends, etc. and it feels good to “indulge” and do something for me. Do I like collecting rare things in nice condition, yep. I like beautiful preserved cards over a bunch or dog eared cards in a rubber band. I like nice photos better than one’s that are ripped. I like holding stuff in my hands that are one of a kind and I’ve never seen another. I like sometimes having the nicest graded copy of something. I don’t need to touch an old card to enjoy owning it.

No one type of a collector is more of a collector
Or a better collector than anyone else. People need to move on from the idea there is some pure true collector.

Make yourself happy. Stop worrying what others are doing. Hobby has a big tent.

[theshowandme]

I must be doing things wrong

[LEHR]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Like a lot of people on the board, I’ve busted my ass my whole life, working like a dog, nights, weekends, etc, and now I am at the point where this hobby brings me a lot of joy and it’s about me doing something for me, not for family, not for friends, etc. and it feels good to “indulge” and do something for me. Do I like collecting rare things in nice condition, yep. I like beautiful preserved cards over a bunch or dog eared cards in a rubber band. I like nice photos better than one’s that are ripped. I like holding stuff in my hands that are one of a kind and I’ve never seen another. I like sometimes having the nicest graded copy of something. I don’t need to touch an old card to enjoy owning it.

No one type of a collector is more of a collector
Or a better collector than anyone else. People need to move on from the idea there is some pure true collector.

Make yourself happy. Stop worrying what others are doing. Hobby has a big tent.

Well said! I'm in the same camp as you but everyone should just collect what makes them happy.

[G1911]

Here's my Woody, which I got back when I was a kid at a local show as my first '34 Goudey. I remember General Alvin Crowder (a pretty darn good stat line for a totally forgotten player) was my first Goudey card from the 1933 set. He's seen some rough days, and unfortunately this one has a normally printed back instead of a blank reverse.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by G1911

Here's my Woody, which I got back when I was a kid at a local show as my first '34 Goudey. I remember General Alvin Crowder (a pretty darn good stat line for a totally forgotten player) was my first Goudey card from the 1933 set. He's seen some rough days, and unfortunately this one has a normally printed back instead of a blank reverse.

That is an awesome Woody English, sir. With the backstory, I would rather have it than one in pristine condition, because the story is truly priceless.

[BioCRN]

When it comes to graded, my wheelhouse is "Looks nice for a low grade."

My lane is a bit wider than others because surface is more important to me than centering. While some are out there willing to pay a bit more than the number for great centering, I'm out there trying to pay less than the number because I'll sacrifice on centering for a sharp looking card.

I'm not concerned about resell. While I do make occasional upgrades I'm mostly out there looking for a card I don't mind having for the next 20-30-50-whatever years.

[StraightRaceCards]

Love the English cards. There is a great story about his pranks in his SABR bio:

But he also had an impish side: English “was like ‘Peck’s bad boy’ in the grade-school books of the day. He looked innocent but wasn’t. English’s favorite prank was to crawl across the floor of a hotel lobby and sneak up on an unsuspecting businessman reading the newspaper. English would light the bottom of the paper and slip away as the newspaper caught fire.”

[brianp-beme]

Looks like English is the hobby language spoken on this thread. But if you want to broaden your linguistic horizons, I suggest going after this Woody in the 1934
World Wide Gum set to add a dash of French to your English.

Brian (oui oui messieurs)

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

It is fun when it still happens. Not pre-war, but my brother, who's in his 40's, recently bought some lots of the "less than big name" players he was a fan of as a kid off eBay. 140+ card lots of Julio Franco cards with lots of oddballs, for example. I think it cost him less than $10 delivered, which is pretty good for a bit of fun considering you can't buy a fast food lunch for that anymore.



I wrote an article a while back on the different types of collectors.

Mike, that was an enjoyable read. You nailed a bunch of types. I think you missed a bunch, though, too.

How about the guy that goes back to collect all the cards from when he was a kid, to maybe relive his joy when he first discovered baseball.

What about the collectors who like cards from the turn of the 20th century and before, in order to appreciate what baseball, and our country, was like back then.

Or those who find obscure and under-appreciated corners of the hobby and focus on them, in order to make them better known for the rest of us.

There are collectors who focus on their favorite player, or their favorite team. Some goofy guys even focus on error cards.

There's a lot of us out there, and the great thing about it is there is a card for every collector.

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[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

There's a lot of us out there, and the great thing about it is there is a card for every collector.

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goudey33ruthbabe 001 (337x400).jpg

My two piece bikini Babe agrees with everything you mentioned, but he especially understands that he found the right collector.


Brian

[jingram058]

Bumping this thread to see if anyone's collecting opinions have changed?

I still collect raw, low grade cards because 1) I can afford them, 2) I can enjoy them by handling them (which is a big deal to me), and 3) I myself don't care about investing (I have other investments).

[steve B]

I must have been busy in March, I didn't reply originally.

I'm a bit of both.
Nearly all my cards are not graded. For many of them it's mostly pointless.

I do have a few graded ones, and have sent some in.
I only sort of thought about value when I did, aside from a few modern cards I was going to sell.

My wife and I have talked about this a bit.
She thinks I like the hunt more than the catching. And that's sort of true.
It is nice to see cards I thought were really nice get recognition of that through grading.

When we talked about value I explained it as "It's sort of a hunting game, and the value of the catches are just the way of keeping score. "
So more points for finding something at a low price, or something that is special in some way. That goes across all my collecting.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

I wrote an article a while back on the different types of collectors.

Originally Posted by The Importance of Knowing What Type of Sports Card Collector You Are - Mike D

An interesting subset is people who say they don’t care about value, and bemoan the prices some cards have reached, making them harder to acquire.

But then they’ll go spend thousands on some rare ... gem because they like it.

That's not actually inconsistent though. Consider. The first cards I ever owned were four 1958-59 Topps Hockey cards I picked up off the street one late winter day when I was in first grade. Over the last 45 years I've therefore taken delight in assembling a sharp bright set of these cards:





But the last card in the set is Bobby Hull's rookie card:

(Not mine.)

I'd acquired one way back in 1980 but it wasn't in nearly the condition of my others. So do I now tighten my belt and spend the truly big bucks to complete my set with a really nice Bobby Hull card?

Or do I spend the money instead buying more of the other cards from the same year such as the Topps 1958 and 1959 Baseball, Planes, Target Moon and Wacky Plaks?



Since I have other Bobby Hull cards featuring better poses, to this point I've been doing the latter.

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

Mike, that was an enjoyable read. You nailed a bunch of types. I think you missed a bunch, though, too.

How about the guy that goes back to collect all the cards from when he was a kid, to maybe relive his joy when he first discovered baseball.

That's me!

[brianp-beme]

When I call collect on this board, you all have to foot the visual bill.


Brian (collecting collector's collection castaways for the sake of assembling said cards for some seriously scintillating scans. This type of collecting should not occur while operating heavy machinery, does not need to be confessed to a priest in a little wooden booth, nor should it be a topic discussed on a first date)

[ullmandds]

i have much more surface area in raw cards in my collection...many in binders many in boxes.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Not cards in slabs with bar codes.
Not worrying about how much they're worth.

I didn't reply originally, but from James and others - we seem to see this aspect of collector superlative tossed around from time to time. Are you a big wheel investor or otherwise who has this elaborate, pricey collection? Or are you doing things ostensibly with more purity by not worrying about the value and all kinds of other things. Whether you have the means and are just noble or something and can't be made to care about value, or that doesn't for whatever reason do it for you, or something different.

Not that either are mutually exclusive for one to be considered a "collector"; I would agree the definition can be very broad.

I started collecting at age 9 in 1986, and was if I'm remembering correctly already totally engrossed by the "old" cards I had discovered, anything pre-1980's - less than two years later.

Given the state of the hobby and when I found such things, there has never been a time I can remember where the value of cards just wasn't a concern at all. Those days were already gone. Even for new cards, and the Mattinglys and Cansecos we were looking to pull from Topps, Donruss, and Fleer packs when I started - it was understood that some cards are more valuable than others, and if you didn't realize that well, here came your friends with their Beckett Monthly's who quickly filled you in.

I started off with raw vintage, so to me a slab has more or less always been a vehicle to make sure you don't get ripped off buying something sight unseen, on ebay or elsewhere. If a pricey card - generally $100 or more, but I've bought slabs intentionally for lower value too - then if I target a PSA 5, I can usually be reasonably sure the card is not going to arrive with a hidden crease. But there is limited utility here. To me, a slab is just a holder with an opinion on it. Neither have to be permanent.

As the times change so do collectors and practices and attitudes and opinions. I can't stand them much now, but in the late 1980's - all my cards, whether in set or random order - were in binders. It's just what you did, everyone had a card album. Today I prefer organizing differently, but I also have boxes full of slabs. Had I been big time into this stuff before the retail hobby, maybe back in the 1930's - I'm sure I would have mounted cards in albums just like Burdick and Carter, and others did. So as it circles back to slabs, maybe it's just a "collector of the times" thing. We may think slabs are childish and stupid 50 years from now; who knows. I kinda doubt that, but it's possible.

As to the value, because it's again just how I grew up collecting - sure, it's of secondary purpose to me - because I collect due to enjoying nostalgia and I just genuinely like the cards themselves. But I would be in the camp that for some things I have, it would be foolish to just totally ignore value, and not to have a plan for these things in the future, etc. So that's what I do.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I'm not so sure this idyllic state where nobody cared about values ever existed. I remember price guides in the 70s. I think it's inherent in most collectibles.

I was going to say by the first time I went to a card show (back in '86) and saw the asking prices I started caring about what the cards were worth before (and after) I bought them.

[Balticfox]

In 1979-81 I was aware of only two comic shops in Toronto (Comics Unlimited on Keewatin Avenue just east of Yonge Street and Queen's Comics & Collectibles at the Beach) and Dreamland Comics on James Street North in Hamilton that carried cards. I later learned that there was also a stamp/coin shop in Hamilton just north of the comic shop that dealt in cards so perhaps there might have been a couple of other such shops in Toronto of which I wasn't aware.

Dedicated card shows didn't make an appearance in Toronto (and perhaps anywhere in Canada) until about 1986 and they were then really low budget affairs held in less than first class halls/meeting rooms. I remember being excited to learn that another (my second) card show was going to take place in far away Niagara Falls in 1987(?). Shortly thereafter newspapers and other media sources started running stories about the prices fetched by the T206 Honus Wagner and 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards and card collecting absolutely exploded in popularity with the general public.

Those days were certainly different, albeit not necessarily better. The internet has certainly done wonders to put collectibles and collectors together.

[KJA]

I collect but have sub collections within the overall collection. I collect cards with cool photography, cards that are funny, error cards.
I also don't mind slabs, I have bought a few but it's more for players I PC like Chris Sabo or Eric Davis or cards that hold a special place for me or invoke a memory like 86 Topps Jim McMahon. The only slab I have that would any real monetary value is a Scottie Pippen RC, that was more of a too good to pass up deal.

Otherwise I collect raw and anything pre 1980 I'm not a stickler for condition.