When to consider yourself a Supercollector?

[predatorkj]

I only have one Bagwell 1/1, and I was lucky enough to have it come into my LCS clear up here in Spokane Washington.

I have been collecting Jeff Bagwell with a few other Astro players here and there since 1994. It wasnt until recently that I decided to stop dinking with other players who dont stay with the team and solely collect Bagwell only. So thats 16 years of collecting Bagwell. 11 years of stellar seasons and disabled lists (since he retired in 2006). And at the time I lived in California, where Bagwell wasnt exactly a hot item to keep in local card shops. At the start of my collecting, Ebay was just beginning its grip on society through dial up 28.8 service. Remember sniping a whole minute before it ended cuz it took that long for the page to load? It is much easier to find cards these days, thats for sure. And sites like ebay, and now Burbank and COMC, truly does help a super collector find cards they dont have. I have only recently even heard of Burbank and COMC. I cannot wait to get enough extra money to use COMC (they have base and "cheap" cards I have not been able to find anywhere else), and I did use Burbank for the first time 2 weeks ago. What a rush to find 22 cards I didnt have before arrive in my mailbox!

Now in regards to this whole talk about filling your collection with "cheap" and "base" cards... Sometimes for me I have a harder time finding those cards compared to higher dollar inserts. why? Because people tossed their base cards and lower filler inserts to land the high dollar money making inserts. It truly is harder at times to find just a base set card of a player than it is to find a numbered insert.

So do I consider myself a super collector? Sure. I'm addicted to collecting Bagwell cards. And its a Super collection. One of the finest ones outside of Texas

Nothing wrong with adding cheap cards to your collection. At all! I do it often as I like to keep the fire burning but I may not always have money to pony up. You need to check out sportlots. Great site for finding cheap cards that seem to be a pain to find.

But as far as cost...to me, it really doesn't matter. But really, I have been a part of purchasing a Bagwell lot with over 1300 different cards in it. Now I didn't need all of them. I went in halfses on it with a bud. I took the three or four hundred I needed, he kept the rest.
But if I had needed them all, and just won it myself...boom! Now I am sitting at 1300 different cards with a few clicks of a button and $200. Very little work. So if I added another 200 cheapies in the next year...I'm a super collector? No. I've spent very little time, not much money(guys...shipping on sportlots is like $0.60-$1.00 max on singles and you can nab multiple cards you might need from one guy) and I don't have very much to show for myself that makes my collection look unique. It doesn't matter if my collection is "better" than anyone else's. IMO, to be super, you need to be able to bring things to the table not everyone else can. Otherwise, you might have a hefty collection, but what exactly makes it super? Nothing.



I actually envy guys who collect cheaper players. The cards are still rare. To me, it doesn't matter if you pay a penny for a 1/1. You are still bringing something to the table no one else can. But it doesn't have to be 1/1's. It can be anything from a popular set, patches, autos, GU ...pretty much anything. You could go nab 300 Glaus GU and it would still be something few others bring to the table. But you bring me 300 base cards to the table and I'll match it. If it's being called super, feelings be damned, it really does need to be super in some way. This isn't a discussion about who has a better collection. If someone takes it that way...they will have to go pout in the corner. It's about who has a unique collection. If at the end of the day it was only about money...I could match anyone card for card and depending on the player they collect, they could still have a better collection. Effort,dedication, personal touch...those are the equalizers.

 

[tikitomoka]

So can there only be one SC per player?

You actually answered your own question. No. As long as there are such things as 1/1's and anything numbered lower than /50, there will never be a person who is able to do it with a mainstream player. That is just the way it goes. Honestly, the closest you'd get is if you outlived your competition and were able to purchase what they had. Even then you'd be at a loss for what has never surfaced. Or what has been destroyed...though technically if it's been destroyed, I guess it doesn't exist anyways...

So you take a guy like Rickey....nope. Cause all of you guys battle it out. Eventually, it's like nothing but a pie where everyone has their own share but nobody has all the pieces.

Maybe in baseball, but I disagree with the bolded. You can pick a rookie in football that was at the premiere and put together a sick collection if you have the funds to do so. It all comes down to money vs competition. Had I wanted to buy every Rhett Bomar card I saw while i was collecting him, I would have, but at that point i didn't enjoy it anymore and it was spending money for the sake of it, but I was also the only major collector of him (shocker).

 

[VizquelCollector.com]

As long as there are such things as 1/1's and anything numbered lower than /50, there will never be a person who is able to do it with a mainstream player. That is just the way it goes. Honestly, the closest you'd get is if you outlived your competition and were able to purchase what they had. Even then you'd be at a loss for what has never surfaced. Or what has been destroyed...though technically if it's been destroyed, I guess it doesn't exist anyways...

So you take a guy like Rickey....nope. Cause all of you guys battle it out. Eventually, it's like nothing but a pie where everyone has their own share but nobody has all the pieces.

I think this is pretty accurate, and I'd like to share my own personal experience on the topic. At this point I am missing about 40 non-1/1 cards of Vizquel out of about 2,300. My opinion is that it simply boils down to the following:

1) TIME- I've spent an UNHEALTHY amount of time researching, hunting, networking, organizing, emailing, etc. I'm talking about 2-12 hours per day for over 15 years. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent, but it's safe to say well over 12K hours. So I've essentially been working a second job part-time for 15 years.
2) LUCK- LOTS and LOTS of luck. There have been DOZENS of cards that shouldn't really be difficult to find but I've only ever seen once. I've also gotten incredible deals on some cards that should have been much more expensive and they just slipped through to me. Without luck, my collection would only be a fraction of what it is.
3) MONEY- Sure, you can buy large collections and save a lot. But I just don't know how I could have built such a comprehensive collection without spending quite a bit of money. Vizquel has traditionally flown under the radar and his cards have been relatively cheap. But many of them just took the willingness to outspend/overspend.
4) OCD- You've gotta have some level of insanity to keep track of everything, know at a glance what you do/don't have, stick with the collection, stay focused, repetitive searching, brainstorm for new sources, etc.

My point is NOT that I'm the greatest or deserve some recognition, in truth I collect only for my own enjoyment. If I was looking for a pat on the back, I wouldn't have chosen Vizquel to collect. But I hope stories like mine help people understand the effort and passion that goes into building a collection that pales in comparison to many others. If there's someone out there with a larger/bigger/better Vizquel collection, I cannot imagine what/how they did it. The guys who have built collections of 3K, 4K, 5K different cards? To me that's flat out SCARY and I would have bailed a long time ago!

 

[JackLondon]

First off, I don't consider myself a Super Collector, just a collector (small c).

I think it is fine that any collector considers him/herself a Super Collector instead of the Super Collector. Doesn't need to be a competition, either way (except in terms of competing to find the cards!)

The idea of having agreed upon criterion for "Super Collector" is kinda goofy.

Collect what you want, as much as you want, for as long as you want. Be satisfied with your collection and don't worry about the other folks.

 

[PujolsCollector]

First off, I don't consider myself a Super Collector, just a collector (small c).

I think it is fine that any collector considers him/herself a Super Collector instead of the Super Collector. Doesn't need to be a competition, either way (except in terms of competing to find the cards!)

The idea of having agreed upon criterion for "Super Collector" is kinda goofy.

Collect what you want, as much as you want, for as long as you want. Be satisfied with your collection and don't worry about the other folks.

How dare you bring sense and reason into this post. We have had off topic disscusons about jorts And you come in here making sense. Not thanking that post. Hahahahahaha

 

[predatorkj]

Maybe in baseball, but I disagree with the bolded. You can pick a rookie in football that was at the premiere and put together a sick collection if you have the funds to do so. It all comes down to money vs competition. Had I wanted to buy every Rhett Bomar card I saw while i was collecting him, I would have, but at that point i didn't enjoy it anymore and it was spending money for the sake of it, but I was also the only major collector of him (shocker).

I actually collect Bomar because of where he went to college. So you weren't the only one collecting him :lol: . Imo though, you can't do it with Barry Sanders. Or with Peyton Manning. Or Adrian Peterson. Guys like that. Even if you were rich, people can still keep up with you. There will still be a slew of rare stuff you won't ever get the chance to own. Basically, you are at the mercy of what you can find. And also at the mercy of how popular your player is. Which is why I don't feel there can only be one super collector for a guy who is mainstream with plenty of cards. Now if you want to collect a guy with not very many cards(as I know Bomar doesn't have many) and you nab everything you see(which with some guys it can be done cheaply), then yeah...it's possible. But imagine if Bomar played for another 15 seasons and was popular. Hell...even if he wasn't but still played nonetheless. It's hard to know if you are ever gonna get the chance to have everything. With guys who are popular(mainstream) and have a lot of cards...it's damn near impossible, funds, or not.

You'd have to put out a worldwide APB and also have the funds to back it as well as be lucky enough that people don't really care about the guy enough to keep the cards. To my knowledge, nobody has that much stroke in the hobby. Some certain collector's may be close. But it's not total and absolute.

 

[ASTROBURN]

4) OCD- You've gotta have some level of insanity to keep track of everything, know at a glance what you do/don't have, stick with the collection, stay focused, repetitive searching, brainstorm for new sources, etc.

Yes. OCD helps a lot! And Predator, thanks for the sportlots tip. I'll have to check them out too.

Just like i referenced before, my collection was much more difficult before I came here. You guys have shown me many different outlets for me to continue my addiction. And I thank you!

 

[WoundedDuck]

First off, I don't consider myself a Super Collector, just a collector (small c).

I think it is fine that any collector considers him/herself a Super Collector instead of the Super Collector. Doesn't need to be a competition, either way (except in terms of competing to find the cards!)

The idea of having agreed upon criterion for "Super Collector" is kinda goofy.

Collect what you want, as much as you want, for as long as you want. Be satisfied with your collection and don't worry about the other folks.

So glad you said this. Everytime I've seen this thread I wanted to say the same thing. Who cares what you or anyone else calls yourself in the collecting world. If you want to consider yourself a super collector because you like to collect a specific player, then that's great. Who cares what everyone else thinks. It's all just semantics. Just collect what you want.

 

[AmishDave]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

 

[TNP777]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

not mine - they belong to the Chris Sabo collector over on CU. That's a LOT of '89 Sabos!

 

[pujols5hof]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

not mine - they belong to the Chris Sabo collector over on CU. That's a LOT of '89 Sabos!

he'll never have all of em lol i gotta have 100 in piles scattered all over my card room

 

[PujolsCollector]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

not mine - they belong to the Chris Sabo collector over on CU. That's a LOT of '89 Sabos!

he'll never have all of em lol i gotta have 100 in piles scattered all over my card room

What an odd collection

 

[Dice-K Collector]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

not mine - they belong to the Chris Sabo collector over on CU. That's a LOT of '89 Sabos!

he'll never have all of em lol i gotta have 100 in piles scattered all over my card room

What an odd collection

Lol what an AWESOME collection is more like it

 

[bouwob]

Are you a "super collector" when even your wife knows that you've got multiples of a card or that she says we need to be on the show Hoarding because you've got so many cards of a single player ?

I like doubles, they rule

 

[tpeichel]

Back in the early 1990s, I ran into this guy who would try to get 9 copies of each Clemens card. He had the 9 pocket page binders for every year and he could just open one up and flip through the binder and each different page would have nine copies of the exact same card of all the different Clemens. That guy wiped me out of a lot of oddball Clemens stuff.

 

[PujolsCollector]

Back in the early 1990s, I ran into this guy who would try to get 9 copies of each Clemens card. He had the 9 pocket page binders for every year and he could just open one up and flip through the binder and each different page would have nine copies of the exact same card of all the different Clemens. That guy wiped me out of a lot of oddball Clemens stuff.

What an oddball. lol I think right now the only card I want doubles of is the Descalso autograph card.

 

[JackLondon]

Waaaaaaaayyyyyy back in 1978, I can remember a friend of mine who wanted to amass as many copies of the 1978 Topps Ted Simmons card. At one point he had about 20. We all thought he was odd.

Perhaps he was ahead of his time? (Except for the fact that he was amassing Ted Simmons cards; Carew I could have understood, but Simmons?)

 

[Fandruw25]

Super collectors are those that go beyond the common collection. If you have a 'super collection' you know it. So many collections pointed out in this thread are based on post count or the visibility that was attached. Was the guy who Burbank got their cards from a "super collector"?


For instance, AndruwHRJones and I both collect Andruw....does that mean one of our collections is inferior? We collect what we like, discuss items that show up and work to better both collections as one....does that mean we are not true collectors due to the cost we don't' have to put into items?

 

[pujols5hof]

Waaaaaaaayyyyyy back in 1978, I can remember a friend of mine who wanted to amass as many copies of the 1978 Topps Ted Simmons card. At one point he had about 20. We all thought he was odd.

Perhaps he was ahead of his time? (Except for the fact that he was amassing Ted Simmons cards; Carew I could have understood, but Simmons?)

ted simmons=snubbed hof catcher

 

[predatorkj]

Super collectors are those that go beyond the common collection. If you have a 'super collection' you know it. So many collections pointed out in this thread are based on post count or the visibility that was attached. Was the guy who Burbank got their cards from a "super collector"?


For instance, AndruwHRJones and I both collect Andruw....does that mean one of our collections is inferior? We collect what we like, discuss items that show up and work to better both collections as one....does that mean we are not true collectors due to the cost we don't' have to put into items?

It's not about trying to impress anyone or being worried about being inferior or superior. It's about collecting for yourself, who you want to collect, and adding your own personal touch. Not sure how much clearer that could be.


And oh...btw, yeah...the guy from Hawaii they(Burbank) bought their stuff from was a supercollector that had us all freaking beat. In a really really bad way. If you can imagine one guy having all that stuff...it's amazing. I'd actually consider that one of the best collections in the world.