Sunday, January 10, 2010

Sunday Musing

As I sit here and bid my time till I'm filled with either over flowing elation or nerve deading season ending depression as the Packer/Cardnials game is on in about 2.5 hours from now, I've been surfing the blog 'o' sphere reading other's Sunday rambling and sooz over at A Cardboard Problem posted a Sunday question about all the post career and post life issued cards of players ie Mickey Mantle.  I posted a few thoughts and read a few other's thoughs on the matter and it got me thinking.  And trust me that's a dangerous prospect right there. 

I have also been reading a series in Tuff Stuff about what's wrong with the hobby.  ie: exclusivity, $50 packs, ect. ect.  And how companies are alienating the set builders and pricing the youth of today who will be the next collectors of tomorrow. 

So my thinking was what exactly defines us collectors and card junkies? 
And like anything there are lots of diffenent species of us.  Bear with me.  I'm sure we've all thought about this and I'm sure it's been blogged about before and the scientist in me has decided to try and classify, at least the basic, kinds of collectors out there.  See where you fit.  These are in no  particular order.

1.  Player collector:  A collector that collects cards and memoriblia of a certain player, regardless of what team(s) they have played for. 
  Sub-species: Regular issue collector:  A collector that collect only cards issued in the regular sets issued from card companies
                        Insert collector: collector that collects inserts and oddballs of a certain player.
                        General collector:  collector that collects all cards that were issued of that player by all companies and brands. 
                         Completeist:  A collector that tries to collect every card ever issued of a player, even thought the possiblity is slim that it will ever be attained.

2.  Set Collector:  A collector that puts together and collects sets issued from card companies.  This may be a collector that purchases factory sets or hand collates their own sets.  Set collectors may have preferences to certain companies and/or sets. 

3. Team Collector:  A collector that collects cards and card sets from a specific team.

4. Vintage Collector:  A collector that collects only cards before a certain date.  Usually 1975 or earlier.

5.  Autograph and Game-used collector:  A collector that collects only Autographs and game-used cards( bats, jersey, helmets, ect).  This collector may be a sub species of team and player collectors. Also may include Through the Mail (TTM) collectors.

6.  Rookie collector:  A collector that collect rookie and prospect cards.

7.  Speculative collector:  A "collector"  that collects cards in the hopes that they will become more valuable over time and that they can turn a profit.

That's all I can think up at the moment.  If you guys can think of anything that needs to be added to this list or you think you're not represented let me know.

Now this list isn't to pidgeonhole any body.  One person can be a multiple kind of collector.  As for me I know I fall into at least 3 of these catagories.  I'm a player collector, I love Yount, Fingers, Reggie Jackson, and yes, I still love Brent Favre.  I collect sets.  I have been putting together Topps baseball sets since 1987 when I started collecting cards,  and I'm a team collector collecting Brewers and Packer cards.  And I have a nice Autograph collection and there's nothing wrong with that.

God this one still cracks me up.

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