Player Supercollector Questions about Leaf
 

TL;DR: My player collection is being tested by a sudden release of lots of new, expensive, 1/1 cards. How do other player collectors cope with not being able to keep up with so many new expensive cards?



Over the years I have refined my baseball card collecting to focus on just one player, my favorite player from my childhood. My goal has been to get one of each of his cards.

It's been fun to track down his cards, and I was able to get my wantlist down to less than a handful of cards, mostly 1/1s from long ago that have never shown up for sale. I've even got all the variants of cards, cards from board games and whatever else player collectors usually go for. I'm proud of how complete my collection is.

Late last year he showed up in a high end Leaf set, where boxes are $300 and only have 3 cards. Not only that, but he has ~20 different cards, with more than half of them being 1/1s. I figured it would be fun, it's been a few years since a new set has come out to chase cards from. It has been fun, but way more expensive than any other cards in my player collection.

Then he appeared in another new Leaf set, this time on multi player signed cards. There are two cards, both with 10 color variants. All 1/1s. Obviously I'm not getting all twenty of these, but I might be able to get one of each card.

And now there's a third new Leaf set, with another ~20 different cards. I'm torn, do I keep trying to complete my player collection? I'm looking at probably $1000+ to chase this new set, which is way different than my years of buying 1990s commons for my player collection.

There's also a guy on ebay who sells "pre-production proofs" from Leaf sets, so that doubles the number of cards to chase for each new set. Side note, does anyone know the story behind this? I assume he's a Leaf employee or works for their printing contractor since he seems to get complete sets of proofs.

Who knows how many more signed stickers Leaf has that could show up on cards in new high end sets. I'm not interested in chasing a new set every few months. Also, on sticker autos don't appeal to me, I'd be just as happy to get an unsigned card.

Have any other player collectors had an experience like this?

Is there a general strategy that player collectors use once their player has too many high end cards to be able to collect them all?

Thanks!

As a collector of a player who has a ton of high end cards you need to understand this one truth.......you're not gonna have them all. Player collecting is a neverending journey so just enjoy the ride and have fun.

I have a few thousand different Pujols cards but I'd hardly call myself a supercollector. Personally I hate that label.

[QUOTE=bblair_2002;20154381]As a collector of a player who has a ton of high end cards you need to understand this one truth.......you're not gonna have them all. Player collecting is a neverending journey so just enjoy the ride and have fun.[/QUOTE]

This is where I land, also. The journey is the fun part.

I was overwhelmed as a Yordan collector looking at all year cards . You must define a boundary. For me its only 2020 Topps Rookie Cards of Yordan. And even that is over 400 unique cards not including parellels. So Im giving myself many years.

Create a boundary that meets your budget. Sounds like cutting sticker cards is one example that can work for you.

Who is the player so I can hold the plethora of Leaf 1/1 cards hostage. One thing that you may not know, you can influence the manufactures by the market you would have created had you spent $300 and $1000 on each card had they been available. With Leaf, had they seen that, they would've created another 100 1/1 cards and then did another 1000 1/1 buybacks. Ask the Galarraga and Omar Vizquel super collectors what Topps did. Haha

Thanks for all the boundary suggestions! I think it's time to give up my "one of every card" and stick to the new cards that I actually like. No more buying weird Halloween cards with ghosts and zombies :doh:

[QUOTE=Archangel1775;20154426]Who is the player so I can hold the plethora of Leaf 1/1 cards hostage.[/QUOTE]

Ha ha, that's why I didn't mention him by name. Click on my profile, you'll find the answer. If you look for my old posts you might even find a list of the few cards I would actually pay a ransom for.

I fully believe that I'm the one driving up demand for his cards and Leaf is seeing that and creating more. Buy-it-now prices that I've paid are about 4x what they end up in auctions. I'll definitely be setting some boundaries on prices going forward. Especially if I'll be asked to meet your hostage demands :)

I can't imagine Kelly Gruber Leaf 1/1s are going to sell for crazy amounts. Looks like most have been around $30. If it's in your budget that gives you more things to chase...if it isn't then just say you aren't collecting leaf.

I am a player collector as well, and with my player collection, I stick to cards only - no memorabilia - and only the licensed brands. Therefore I can avoid Leaf, Panini Baseball, Wild Card, Sage, etc... and not feel like I'm missing anything. I guess it's up to each person to set their own collecting parameters.

New Leaf is an EZ skip.

The great thing about it is that it’s your collection, so you get to decide where and how to draw the line.

Having put together a player PC, I hated going after the Topps Archives signature series because they were basically various random base cards I already had, just signed and serial-numbered… did I ‘have to’ get all those variations? And was I even sure I knew what all of them were (I don’t recall if there was even a checklist of all the different base cards they got him to sign)? In the end, I bought a few of them but didn’t sweat trying to get them all- it wasn’t going to make me enjoy my collection any more or any less.

Want to draw the line at getting everything down to /25, and not worry about /10, /5, and 1/1? Great. Want to stick to Topps/Bowman only and avoid unlicensed cards like Leaf and Panini? Sounds perfectly reasonable. Are some cards just too expensive for you to ever get? Been there. There are no rules to collecting except for the ones you make for yourself. Put together the collection you’re going to enjoy, rather than what others would call “complete”. As others have mentioned, it’s virtually impossible to have a 100% complete collection anyway.

[QUOTE=Bambino22;20154404]I was overwhelmed as a Yordan collector looking at all year cards . You must define a boundary. For me its only 2020 Topps Rookie Cards of Yordan. And even that is over 400 unique cards not including parellels. So Im giving myself many years.

Create a boundary that meets your budget. Sounds like cutting sticker cards is one example that can work for you.[/QUOTE]

How does Yordan have over 400 2020 Topps rookies without counting parallels?

Y’all should invest in some therapy…

[QUOTE=base set;20154599]How does Yordan have over 400 2020 Topps rookies without counting parallels?[/QUOTE]

Go to the Yordan thread and see the stats I posted. They are accurate. But short story is he was in every set with every insert.

Just don’t collect unlicensed cards.

I have a few recent Leaf 1/1 Delgado cards. A bat barrel and a knob I think, from 2020. But I also decided to ignore new Leaf releases. I like doing things that have an end in sight, and although Topps does put out new Delgado cards every now and then, it's not a lot, so I can deal with it. Leaf just puts out too much stuff every year, and it usually doesn't even look that good. Panini I'm usually OK with, although they haven't put out many Delgado cars lately either.

I bought the Topps signature series cards the first few years as well but also gave up on those. I don't have $2000 to drop on arbitrary 1/1s every few years on top of the other cards I'm chasing from his playing years.

I'm missing around 1600 cards right now, and that's plenty to chase without Leaf and other shenanigans. Would love to have it down to around 1200 needed at the end of the year. But I agree it's about the fun of the chase. Set your own rules!

I collect a player from the 90s. My opinion is that I do not collect any post-playing days cards of him. If I did collect ultramodern cards of him, I would stick to licensed cards only. But if I just had to collect everything that exists, I would have to come to grips with not having everything.

I guess I'm a player accumulator. There are way too many cards I want to buy of that player and other players, so I figure why buy a card I don't like?

I have a have a Nolan Ryan collection I started as a kid. When I got back into collecting I decided to add to the Ryan collection a bit. I limited it to playing days and the few cards he had in 95ish celebrating his retirement. I would drive myself crazy if I tried to collect everything that’s been produced since his retirement. The one exception is some Topps reprints that I like.


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I haven’t cared about a Leaf card since 1990 so it’s an easy solve for me. I scroll past Altuve & Correa Leaf cards the same way I scroll past Prizm & Mosaic baseball

Player Supercollector Questions about Leaf
 

[QUOTE=diwhite;20154279]

There's also a guy on ebay who sells "pre-production proofs" from Leaf sets, so that doubles the number of cards to chase for each new set. Side note, does anyone know the story behind this? I assume he's a Leaf employee or works for their printing contractor since he seems to get complete sets of proofs.

[/QUOTE]

i was messaging a guy on ebay bc he had a complete rainbow of a player that just had leaf cards come out. super cheap (or at least should be), but he had /1 /5 /10 /25 base and a printing plate or something.

which immediately reminded me of another ebay seller a few years ago that had almost the exact same thing and i got him to sell me all of them as a set (see below). guy never did tell me how he ended up with all of them, and it never made sense to me that someone would get all of them only to sell them for not very much…

so i asked this new guy, here’s what he said:

“I get them factory direct. I spend a ton of money with distributor that gets access to special release cards.”

so these little side sets/rainbows are basically just given out to people who spend a lot of money. people get the pre-production proofs, the proofs in slabs, and these little mini-rainbow paper cards in their big case orders.

here’s that rainbow. i think i paid $100 total for the /1, /5, /10, two /25’s, a base and a printing plate. obviously they’re ~worthless, but it was fun to have all of them.

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Player Supercollector Questions about Leaf
 

then there’s this guy thinking somebody is gonna forget they’re leaf giveaway cards [emoji2361] $200 for a blank back unlicensed leaf card lol


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Not baseball but I Super Collect Tim Brown. With very clear boundaries.

No sticker autos.

No event worn fake GU crap unless card is actually cool.

No multiplayer cards.

No leaf no airbrush crap ever.

My goal has always been sheer quantity over quality. Of course I have a ton of quality too but need boundaries and goals !

Good luck man !

Also my PC is linked below :)

You have a Tim Brown I need. We are enemies from this point forward.

Dying to know WHICH ?



[QUOTE=PuddleMonkey;20154876]You have a Tim Brown I need. We are enemies from this point forward.[/QUOTE]

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