When to consider yourself a Supercollector?

[ThoseBackPages]

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.

i think a lot of our "younger" members have what i have bolded above.

 

[Gwynn545]

"Super" collector does not mean who has the most, or the most expensive!






It's who has the biggest!

 

[padremurph]

"Super" collector does not mean who has the most, or the most expensive!






It's who has the biggest!

Awesome

 

[ASTROBURN]

"Super" collector does not mean who has the most, or the most expensive!






It's who has the biggest!

Wow! you Win! You got a toploader for that?? :lol:

 

[TNP777]

/thread

 

[JackLondon]

"Super" collector does not mean who has the most, or the most expensive!






It's who has the biggest!

Wow! you Win! You got a toploader for that?? :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Donutme]

This SABO collection of Rookies is AWESOME !
UNREAL !

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!

 

[Donutme]

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!

Thanks for the examples. I feel like we are rowing in the same boat! Very nicely explained !

 

[PujolsCollector]

This thread has been awesome so far lol

 

[smapdi]

Re: Sabo

Remember when you could buy 100-count or even 600-count blocks of players? I'd see those ads in card magazines (remember card magazines?) and whenever I saw something that looked like a good deal I'd call up and sure enough the price had gone up 10x. Tough be prospect with a 3-month lead time on the ads.

 

[Mozzie22]

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!

Very well said and thanked. I cannot begin to imagine the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours I have dedicated to my Ozzie collection over the course of 25 years. The criteria for what one considers a supercollector may vary from person to person but love and time should factor in heavily in my opinion.

 

[JackLondon]

Re: Sabo

Remember when you could buy 100-count or even 600-count blocks of players? I'd see those ads in card magazines (remember card magazines?) and whenever I saw something that looked like a good deal I'd call up and sure enough the price had gone up 10x. Tough be prospect with a 3-month lead time on the ads.

I remember those days! Weird that no one at the time seemed to wonder about the future value of such "rare" cards when you would see tables at shows with these massive lots of identical cards.

At the time, I had smug visions of some magical day in the future having to change my name to Rockefeller, as I loaded up on 100-count lots of "Texas" Mike Smith and Roger Salkeld cards.

Oddly enough, that didn't exactly work out...

 

[nosterbor]

Re: Sabo

Remember when you could buy 100-count or even 600-count blocks of players? I'd see those ads in card magazines (remember card magazines?) and whenever I saw something that looked like a good deal I'd call up and sure enough the price had gone up 10x. Tough be prospect with a 3-month lead time on the ads.

I remember those days! Weird that no one at the time seemed to wonder about the future value of such "rare" cards when you would see tables at shows with these massive lots of identical cards.

At the time, I had smug visions of some magical day in the future having to change my name to Rockefeller, as I loaded up on 100-count lots of "Texas" Mike Smith and Roger Salkeld cards.

Oddly enough, that didn't exactly work out...

Same here. In 1991 i bought an 800 count box of Sandberg and one of Sosa.1990 Leaf. 10 cents a card, made a killing in 1998

 

[Iamjoecollector]

Obsessively collecting sets is stupid....says the pot:

 

[predatorkj]

Very well said and thanked. I cannot begin to imagine the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours I have dedicated to my Ozzie collection over the course of 25 years. The criteria for what one considers a supercollector may vary from person to person but love and time should factor in heavily in my opinion.

Well without love, you won't last at any niche of this hobby. I've only been back in for 5 years and already seen a good share of people come and go. People start something and get bored with it.

As far as time goes, I think a true supercollector stands out without trying to because chances are, with certain cards, you can automatically pretty much tell that they had to wait a while to find them. Put it this way...the first Score Rules Jumbo I've seen of Bagwell in 5 years has been the only one I've seen. I also happen to now own it. Same can be said of the Colla Collection auto as well as some other various cards. A lot of these cards I've only seen one time, and I pounced immediately. I own the only copies I've seen. I'm pretty sure things slip through the cracks. But I do search decently(I'd like to think). So you figure I have a large stack of cards that I've only seen one time in 5 years of collecting...and plenty more I've still yet to see...it kind of stands out. That doesn't make me a supercollector. But there is no way in hell a random guy just happens upon all of these 6 months after he starts collecting any given player. Maybe one or two but not all of them. Depending on who you collect, I'll know if you are a supercollector or not by the cards you have. Even if you didn't break the bank to get them.

 

[nosterbor]

Today we just had a member on Juangone.com hit 4000 unique. that makes 4 of us now.

 

[glc00]

Mmmm...I could never compete with the sick collections I've seen on the board but I've been collecting the same player since 2003 because he (as a player and person) struck a cord with me and I've collected ever since, at a reduced level but I still collect him...a baseball player on a piece of cardboard...


Gary

BTW My Photobucket pages only have a small number of the Lew cards I have ...I haven't uploaded for awhile..scanning is boring..the passion still burns but not as hot

 

[WoundedDuck]

Today we just had a member on Juangone.com hit 4000 unique. that makes 4 of us now.

That just blows me away. I've been on a Justin Upton cycle for the last month or so, really adding to that collection. I was feeling pretty good about things, but I've only got just over 400 different cards/items. I can't even imagine 4000. I need people to trade with me more :twisted:

 

[TGutta]

Today we just had a member on Juangone.com hit 4000 unique. that makes 4 of us now.

That just blows me away. I've been on a Justin Upton cycle for the last month or so, really adding to that collection. I was feeling pretty good about things, but I've only got just over 400 different cards/items. I can't even imagine 4000. I need people to trade with me more :twisted:

Haha I would love to have 400 different Denard Span cards, but he only has 384 right now :lol:

 

[Mark70Z]

Let's add some age (physical age that is...) to the discussion. What exactly is the definition of a Supercollector? Is there a set of policies and/or procedures to go by to ultimately strive for and to aquire such a title? Without a definition it's all subjective or just our varied opinions of what the term means.

Ok, I like collecting Brooks Robinson (the white Robinson; also like the black one too!). I like his vintage cards, but don't even have all of his regular issue cards ('57-'78); would this exclude me from the exclusive and/or elusive list/group of being a "Supercollector"? I guess that would exclude me, huh?!?