Does anyone player collect Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw?

Topnotchsy · Aug 28, 2014

When I started collecting most everyone collected a player. There were a ton of Griffey collectors, Thomas collectors, Bonds, Ripken, Jeter etc. Now it seems so much less common. Players like Trout, Kershaw, McCutchen, Stanton, Puig etc. represent a new generation of extremely talented young stars, but I don't really see too many people collecting them.

Anyone out there player collect these guys? Is it a generational thing?

predatorkj · Aug 28, 2014

I do but on a limited basis. To be honest, a lot of guys are iffy on spending a house payment on a card of a guy who may not ever sniff the HOF. Plus, the "rare" cards just keep on being made. Prices these days are ridiculous and what good is player collecting if you are already relegated to cheap stuff only or a nice card every month or two right out of the gate? Sure some people may want to collect that way...and more power to them. But I don't like my decisions made for me like that. It's just too hard now. And way too much stuff.

Easier for veteran collectors to do. I know joshhamilton collects Trout and Stanton. But he's being choosy. Same with me. We know the game and how maddening it is. But to a new collector, they'd probably be confused and discouraged by the prices and the parallel madness. And they might delve in and then look at their collection, and just give up. I've seen that a lot.

Topnotchsy · Aug 28, 2014

predatorkj said:
I do but on a limited basis. To be honest, a lot of guys are iffy on spending a house payment on a card of a guy who may not ever sniff the HOF. Plus, the "rare" cards just keep on being made. Prices these days are ridiculous and what good is player collecting if you are already relegated to cheap stuff only or a nice card every month or two right out of the gate? Sure some people may want to collect that way...and more power to them. But I don't like my decisions made for me like that. It's just too hard now. And way too much stuff.

Easier for veteran collectors to do. I know joshhamilton collects Trout and Stanton. But he's being choosy. Same with me. We know the game and how maddening it is. But to a new collector, they'd probably be confused and discouraged by the prices and the parallel madness. And they might delve in and then look at their collection, and just give up. I've seen that a lot.

Interesting. I imagine the confusion plays a role. Which guys do you collect? Kershaw and Trout?

On price though, I'm not really focusing on cards like their Chrome RC Auto's. I'm talking about their regular cards. Base cards, GU cards, base auto's etc. and I don't see cards of these guys (outside of the RC Auto's) selling for much at all. Auto's of guys like Jeter were really expensive long before anyone knew if he would be a HOF. You can get auto's of many of these guys if not all for under $30 other than Trout. I remember with guys like Jeter it was great to collect them as they were developing as players, following their play as young players and then in their primes...

gradedeflator · Aug 29, 2014

I collect some Kershaw stuff but it's hard to player collect him in the way I collect Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez. So manyy of the Kershaw cards have multiple parallels, are auto or GU and therefore have a higher avg. price than the other the more traditional cards of the 90s. It makes me be more selective, which is probably a good thing.

He has so many Topps autos it would be ridiculous to try and grab one of each.

mrmopar · Aug 29, 2014

The intense player collecting that we knew from the 90s is probably on the way to being dead for all but the most dedicated and financially free folks out there. Too many 1/1s and ultra expensive cards for most of the newest, popular players and if the player is retired and great, same story. If they are so-so players (fan favorites), it seems they are often either left out of many sets or are collected heavily and the competition continues to drive prices up and away.

subject to change · Aug 29, 2014

I agree with what others have said. I just don't see being a true "completist" player collector as being as feasible today as it was even 5-7 years ago. I'm a huge fan of McCutchen, and started a player collection of him immediately after he was drafted in 2005. I was able to keep up with most of his cards through about 2010. But shortly after it started to feel like 60% of his card were game used or autos that were numbered artificially low, and simply priced me out of the collection.

I would say access is another issue. When I started most of my larger player collections in the early-mid 00's, I knew I could fill in most of my base needs for $.10-.25 and find more common numbered inserts/parallels for around $1 or so at local card shows every month or two. There are now 2-3 shows per year in the Pittsburgh area, and few dealers take the time to stock low-mid level cards. I'm not going to spend $3 for a Bowman paper parallel off of ebay, and COMC prices are now almost as high as ebay+shipping for top level players.

I spent two full days at the National looking through everything at lower end boxes, and didn't see so much as a single McCutchen common aside from a few cards in showcases. It just seemed very odd, and I think it's a telling reflection of the future of player collecting if you can't even fill in some of those low end needs affordably at the biggest show of the year.

nkdbacks · Aug 29, 2014

I think it comes down to all the parallels and over abundance of expensive cards.

Obviously I'm a team collector, so it's a little different, but there are some players I focus on more than other, and Goldschmidt is one of them. But buying one nice thing of him means I pretty much break the budget for the week and can't get anything else, whereas picking up a nice Wade Miley still lets me pick up a nice Luis Gonzalez, for example.

It's just hard for me to collect someone that expensive who, like predator said, might not be remembered as a star. Now of course, Goldschmidt and Trout are probably not going to regress, their sample size is big enough, so really it just comes down to how expensive they are.

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Does anyone player collect Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw?

Topnotchsy

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