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what to collect

Revised: 8/13/02

This answer is simple, "whatever you want".  Almost every day, we learn of another way to collect sports cards!!  Don't believe me?  Well I hope to show you what I mean in this collecting tip.  Just read on and I think you'll get the idea.

Almost every card collector has a favorite player or a favorite team. So collecting cards of your favorite player or players on your favorite team is usually the most common form of card collecting.  How many different Sammy Sosa cards can you collect?  How about all of

the Cubs players?  Collecting player cards or cards of players from your favorite team is both easy and challenging.  It's easy because there are many cards to collect and obtaining them is fairly simple.  It's challenging because there is some many different cards of each player or team that it will be difficult to get them all.

Another popular category is collecting rookie cards.  A player's rookie card is typically his most sought after card and usually has the highest value.  The challenge in collecting rookies is finding a card of a young player before he becomes a star.  For example, in 1986, you could buy a Barry Bonds rookie card for around 75¢.  Today the card is worth around $30.  So collecting the rookie cards of the young players before they become stars will sometimes pay off.  Keep in mind, that not all rookies achieve what Barry Bonds has achieved and not all rookie cards go up in value.  If this was easy, we'd all be experts.

Another popular method of collecting is set building.  This involves trying to collect every regular issue card in a certain set in a specific year.  This usually involves buying several packs or boxes of one product until you collect every card that was printed.  Set building was extremely popular through the early 1990's.  In recent years, it has become more difficult to build a set due to the scarcity of certain cards.  We are now seeing signs from the card manufacturers (specifically Topps), that indicate a desire to help collectors return to set building.  This is a welcome change in strategy that will hopefully revive the set building days of old.  I discuss this issue in more detail in the advanced tips section.

A twist on the traditional set building method of collecting is a variation called insert set collecting.  Some collectors want a more challenging (and usually more costly) form of collecting versus the typical method of collecting the more common regular issue cards.  Insert set collecting is just what the doctor ordered.  In most card packs (99%), special insert cards are placed randomly inside the packs. These insert cards are harder to get since they are inserted at a specific frequency based on the manufacturer's print run strategy.  These inserts can be as common as 1 per pack or as rare as 1 per print run of 5000 cases.  Their price will vary depending on their rarity which will also dictate how difficult it will be to find one of the cards.  Insert cards sets are much smaller than the base card sets, typically ranging from 5 cards to 30 cards and most card brands will have several different insert sets to collect.  Collecting and searching for these inserts cards to complete the insert card set is both challenging and fun.

Well, so far we've covered collecting your favorite player, players from your favorite team, rookie cards and set building.  While these are by far the most common forms of collecting sports cards, they are not the only ways.  There are literally 100's of other ways to collect.  While it would be difficult to mention them all here, I will give you several ideas and maybe one of them will be of interest to you.  Well here goes, you can collect:

• All of the MVP award winners of your favorite sport
• One card of each of the All-Century Baseball team
• One of each MVP award winner
• One card of each World Series MVP
• One card of each Superbowl MVP
• One card of each NBA Finals MVP
• All cards of only MVP winners
• All of the Cy Young award winners
• All of the Rookie of the Years award winners
• One card of each All-Star player for each year
• One card of every All-Star MVP for every year
• Stanley Cup team sets (1 card for each championship team player for each year)
• World Series team sets (1 card for each championship team player for each year)
• Superbowl team sets (1 card for each championship team player for each year)
• NBA Finals team sets (1 card for each championship team player for each year)
• All cards of the all of the batting champions
• One card of each batting champion
• One of each of the hockey season leading goal scorers
• One card of the 500 home run hitters
• One card of the 400 home run hitters
• One card of the top 25 career stolen base leaders
• One card of every player to play more than one professional sport
• All players born on your birthday
• One card of each Heisman Trophy winner
• One card of each of the Hall of Fame players of your favorite sport
• One card of all sports celebrities who married other sports celebrities
• All of the NFL rushing leaders
• One card of all the father and son combinations that played professional sports
• One card of all the brother and sister combinations that played pro sports
• One card of every player that also served as a manager
• One card of the greatest 50 players of all-time in each sport
• All of the cards of the players born in your hometown
• All of the cards of the players from Northwest Indiana
• All of the cards of the players that were born in your home state
• One card of every foreign born player in your favorite sport
• All cards of Japanese born players
• One of each player on the 1969 Cubs team
• Cards of players that turned actors or where elected to a political office
• All of the cards of professional athletes that attended your favorite college
• All the season scoring leaders of your favorite sport
• All the season scoring leaders of every sport
• Only kickers or punters
• One card of any player that wore your favorite uniform number
• Only cards of players that wore a certain jersey number
• One card of the best player in all sports to wear each jersey number from 1-99 (Mantle #7, Mays #24, Jordan #23, Payton #34, etc.)
• One card of the best player in specific sport to wear each jersey number from 1-?? 
• All players under 5' 8" tall
• All players who weighed over 300 pounds
• Only minor league cards
• Only Topps cards (or Upper Deck, or Fleer, etc.)
• Only insert cards of your favorite player
• Only base set cards of your favorite player
• All cards of the players with your same last name
• Only left handed pitchers
• Only left handed quarterbacks
• All switch hitters
• Only 3rd basemen
• Only tight ends
• One card of all of the Athletes of the Century Team
• All cards from the year you were born
• All cards from the year your parents were born
• One card from each brand issued in the year you were born
• One Topps card from every year they were made
• One Topps card from every year they were made from your favorite team
• One card from every set or release ever made
• etc.,etc.,etc.

Links to many web sites containing lists of the players for many of these categories can be found on our Tips - Resources page.

I hope I stirred your imagination. My point here is that there is no limit to what you can collect. Only you can determine what you are interested in and what you want to collect.  One tip; don't make the cards you collect to easy to find. Searching for the cards you need is where most of the enjoyment is at.  Also, don't make the cards you collect too difficult to find. This will only discourage you and you'll eventually loose interest.  So, start off with something fairly easy to find and work your way up to some of the more difficult categories.  In the collectors resources section, I provide several links to web sites where you can find additional information to build your own custom collecting lists.

Additional Information on what to collect can be found at the following sites:

• PSA's Collection Construction

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