Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

Who has the largest player collection (most different cards) on this board?

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

banjar

Well-known member
Mar 22, 2015
2,540
883
Lafayette, Colorado
Good lord. That is a truckload of cards!

I have a question - as far as anyone knows, what player has had the most unique cards made of them? Ripken is over 10000, hard to imagine who would have more than that. Griffey?

Looks like you and the rest of the board has been catching up!
My total is right at 8180 today, I'm setting a goal of 10000. We'll see I guess.
 

forgerelli

Member
Apr 4, 2013
383
8
Good lord. That is a truckload of cards!

I have a question - as far as anyone knows, what player has had the most unique cards made of them? Ripken is over 10000, hard to imagine who would have more than that. Griffey?

My guess would be Jeter. His PSA master set has 6578 cards listed which doesn't included 1/1's and only has cards people have submitted to the registry. The Ripken master set has 3507 cards and the Ripken super set which includes cards made after he retired has 4029. The other guy I thought of is Nolan Ryan and he has 2254 in his master set and 4093 in the super set.

Scott F
 

MansGame

Active member
Sep 25, 2009
15,324
20
Dallas, TX
Some of you guys have incredible collections... if you have that many different cards of a single plays, wow, just wow! Very impressive.

I think it would be interesting to also see % of the outstanding cards of a player too because some players just don't have that many outstanding cards... use me for example, Albert Belle only has 2,880 cards out there, so I would never get to 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cards... I do however have ~90% of those, which I think is a pretty impressive in itself.
 

onionring9

Active member
Administrator
Aug 7, 2008
3,490
12
Some of you guys have incredible collections... if you have that many different cards of a single plays, wow, just wow! Very impressive.

I think it would be interesting to also see % of the outstanding cards of a player too because some players just don't have that many outstanding cards... use me for example, Albert Belle only has 2,880 cards out there, so I would never get to 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cards... I do however have ~90% of those, which I think is a pretty impressive in itself.

Which is equally as impressive! 90% is ridiculous.
 

mrmopar

Member
Jan 19, 2010
6,188
4,100
The reality is, anyone who didn't play in the 80s and early 90s is missing a boatload of potential oddballs and if a player retired before the 90s, then they missed the masses of parallels, unless they are included in most sets nowadays as a retired player. Guys like Ripken, Ryan and Griffey to some extent got the best of both worlds for the most part and thus have so many more cards.

I can't even imagine trying to collect a new player now with all of the over the top parallels, SPs and such. I'm not even sure I would enjoy it because of how many cards you just can't get if you are on a reasonable budget. Now toss aside money constraints and you still can't get them all because sometimes they never show up or get locked into collections without hitting the open market.

I can't hang with the big guns simply because my player collection had an active period of 1969-1988 and maybe 1300-1400 unique cards by now (a small percentage around 5-10% of which are 1/1s), was not quite epic enough after his retirement to be included in most of the sets, but he has a great variety of oddball stuff from the 70s-80s. If I ever actually took the time to organize though, I'd probably be in the same boat as MansGame as far as my percentage of cards owned to known cards. My collection extends much further than cards though and I'd say the fun of it is greater in the oddball, non-card items than in the cards themselves.
 

predatorkj

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
11,871
2
My totals are in my sig. As far as percentage, closest I'm at on that is for Jim Deshaies. I need like two cards. That's it. Dude doesn't have but like 200 but these last oddballs are freaking hard to find. Like they don't exist " hard to find".
[MENTION=3754]MansGame[/MENTION], you'll have way more cards to collect because if Belle is like the rest of our players, topps will make about 10,000 low numbered auto patches a year. At that point your wallet will hurt and you'll be scratching your head wondering how they got all this new game used material for the cards...
 

bigunitcards

Member
Sep 8, 2013
654
0
OKC, OK
Good lord. That is a truckload of cards!

I have a question - as far as anyone knows, what player has had the most unique cards made of them? Ripken is over 10000, hard to imagine who would have more than that. Griffey?

1of1s and Moments & Milestones affect these numbers to a large degree. With my guy if you remove 1/1s, it's closer to 8k than the 11k listed. Then if you remove things #/99 or less it goes down to 5.5k or so.

http://www.beckett.com/search/?vintage=212&sport=185223&page=1


  • Rodriguez, Alex(20405)
  • Griffey Jr., Ken(16357)
  • Ripken Jr., Cal(16153)
  • Jeter, Derek(15534)
  • Pujols, Albert(14514)
  • Clemens, Roger(13503)
  • Jones, Chipper(12951)
  • Thomas, Frank BB(12257)
  • Bonds, Barry(12202)
  • Ryan, Nolan(12162)
  • Maddux, Greg(12099)
  • Guerrero, Vladimir(11827)
  • Mantle, Mickey(11683)
  • Johnson, Randy(11528)
  • Suzuki, Ichiro(11089)
  • Ramirez, Manny(10703)
  • Piazza, Mike(10482)
 

predatorkj

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
11,871
2
1of1s and Moments & Milestones affect these numbers to a large degree. With my guy if you remove 1/1s, it's closer to 8k than the 11k listed. Then if you remove things #/99 or less it goes down to 5.5k or so.

http://www.beckett.com/search/?vintage=212&sport=185223&page=1


  • Rodriguez, Alex(20405)
  • Griffey Jr., Ken(16357)
  • Ripken Jr., Cal(16153)
  • Jeter, Derek(15534)
  • Pujols, Albert(14514)
  • Clemens, Roger(13503)
  • Jones, Chipper(12951)
  • Thomas, Frank BB(12257)
  • Bonds, Barry(12202)
  • Ryan, Nolan(12162)
  • Maddux, Greg(12099)
  • Guerrero, Vladimir(11827)
  • Mantle, Mickey(11683)
  • Johnson, Randy(11528)
  • Suzuki, Ichiro(11089)
  • Ramirez, Manny(10703)
  • Piazza, Mike(10482)

Ok, but keep in mind, guys like A-Rod and Mantle have the home run cards from topps(2006 for Mantle and 07 for A-Rod) where there is a card for each home run they had hit. Plus guys like Griffey and Ripken have their own little sets(UD made one for Griffey and Fleer made one for Ripken off the top of my head). Hell, Nolan Ryan has the Pacific Heat sets and the upper deck looney toons stuff(comic ball I think).
 

predatorkj

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
11,871
2
I'd be interested to see how many different gu cards or auto cards people have. The Chavez collector used to have like 300 different autos if I remember correctly. That's insane!
 

bstanwood

Well-known member
Sep 24, 2016
3,666
332
Mystic, CT
My main collection is Tim Wakefield so I can't touch total number or things like that but the Beckett registry has his total number at 799, I have 604 different. That includes the 1/1s. I have 36 autos out of 41 and 41 out of 60 game used. At my last check its 76% of all cards and 90% of non 1/1s. The total numbers aren't nearly as high but the depth is pretty solid. When I started years ago I thought it might be easier because not as many people collect him but in a lot of ways it makes it harder.
 

mrmopar

Member
Jan 19, 2010
6,188
4,100
That is one area that I could make up ground, at least with autos. I have a lot of dupes though, but have to be over 1000 Garvey certified auto cards by now and that doesn't start to count the TTM/IP and signatures on other items.

I'd be interested to see how many different gu cards or auto cards people have. The Chavez collector used to have like 300 different autos if I remember correctly. That's insane!

The number of cards issued is almost certainly related to player popularity, and thus price. The more cards of your player, the more you have to spend and the more competition you have for most. I like to see solid collections of lesser collected guys (like Deshaies or Wakefield) that are damn near complete. Depending on the guy and when he played, there can be some real tough cards that won't break the bank, IF YOU CAN FIND ONE. There was a guy who collected Jon Matlack and had all but 2 or 3 of the 110 or so cards made. Is it as exciting as seeing Griffey patches or Ripken autos? No, but it shows a true dedication and love and not always a fat wallet guy that anyone with money can replicate.

Yep, give me a dedicated small market player collector over one of the many "20-50% complete collection" collectors of mega superstars any day.
 

banjar

Well-known member
Mar 22, 2015
2,540
883
Lafayette, Colorado
Well there you have it. Even though Beckett is missing a lot of cards, they're not missing 4000 more cards for A-Rod than they are for Griffey. So A-Rod has the biggest checklist of all. I was surprised it wasn't Griffey, but his 22-year career started in 1989, which was before the number of card issues each year really started to proliferate. A-Rod's 22 year career started in 1994 and ended this year - so he maxed out on potential card issues. And had better numbers overall.


1of1s and Moments & Milestones affect these numbers to a large degree. With my guy if you remove 1/1s, it's closer to 8k than the 11k listed. Then if you remove things #/99 or less it goes down to 5.5k or so.

http://www.beckett.com/search/?vintage=212&sport=185223&page=1


  • Rodriguez, Alex(20405)
  • Griffey Jr., Ken(16357)
  • Ripken Jr., Cal(16153)
  • Jeter, Derek(15534)
  • Pujols, Albert(14514)
  • Clemens, Roger(13503)
  • Jones, Chipper(12951)
  • Thomas, Frank BB(12257)
  • Bonds, Barry(12202)
  • Ryan, Nolan(12162)
  • Maddux, Greg(12099)
  • Guerrero, Vladimir(11827)
  • Mantle, Mickey(11683)
  • Johnson, Randy(11528)
  • Suzuki, Ichiro(11089)
  • Ramirez, Manny(10703)
  • Piazza, Mike(10482)
 

Gwynn545

Well-known member
Aug 29, 2008
5,526
44
North Seattle
I do not know why threads like this (and the 1500+ list thread) cause people to try to compare whose "type" of collection is better. Everyone has their own style or niche. Someone please start a "80%+..." thread and share those high percentage collections in its own thread. That would be cool. I'd check it out, and I would dream of someday owning 80% of the Gwynn cards. I promise I wont pop in and complain about it!
This thread is specifically about "who has the highest number"... seems easy enough.
That being said, for me personally, I cannot even fathom 8100+ Cal Ripken cards, especially seeing how an avg. Ripken is 2x to 3x (and higher for rarer cards) of what a similar Gwynn goes for. My list: 1. @Jesus, 2. Ghandi, 3. [MENTION=2078]bigalbert[/MENTION], 4. Martin Luther King, Jr., and 5. [MENTION=4293]patrick182[/MENTION]

*edit to add tag to Jesus, he may be reading this...
 
Last edited:

EtherealSOC

Active member
Dec 31, 2012
199
49
Nova Scotia, Canada
I need four more Justice cards to have 1800 unique ones, along with 25,000+ doubles. That's not bad considering he doesn't have more than 2000 unique cards made.

I also have 990 unique Frank Thomas cards, which is cool because I never really collected him on purpose, I just pulled his stuff in everything I opened and it was always around in shows.
 

weight333

New member
May 28, 2013
581
0
Milwaukee, WI
Great point. 90% is incredible! Starting in 2004, Bonds had steep decline in card production due to his licensing agreement. From 2005 to 2007, Topps was the only producer of his cards. Not until 2015 when Panini began including him in their products did he have any new issues. I'm very happy it worked out this way because I was able to play catch up.



Some of you guys have incredible collections... if you have that many different cards of a single plays, wow, just wow! Very impressive.

I think it would be interesting to also see % of the outstanding cards of a player too because some players just don't have that many outstanding cards... use me for example, Albert Belle only has 2,880 cards out there, so I would never get to 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cards... I do however have ~90% of those, which I think is a pretty impressive in itself.
 

Members online

Top