How many times have you re-directed your collecting goals

[bryan2points]

How many times have you re-directed your collecting goals and overall vision of your collection as a whole. I was guilty of trying to collecting more then I could handle. I like high end cards, but I cant collect "everything" I want this to be a hobby for me and to stay fun, not consume the majority of my time. Sure I can collect high end cards still, but collecting everything just wasn't fun for me. I feel at peace with selling a chunk of my collection and keeping just my absolute favs and now taking months researching/looking for a particular card, and thats fun.

Got me thinking today, I cant be alone in this. Would love to hear your stories.

[hermanotarjeta]

About 19 times in the last 40 years.

I go from sport to sport, then start over again.

Did a lot of hockey in the early 90’s, then again in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s.

Always a fun time. I’ve gone through periods of football, baseball, basketball, wwe, f1, golf, non-sport, etc.

Two things that I have never and will never do are nascar and ufc, but that’s about it.

[Archangel1775]

Every ePack break

[Seahawks fan]

As a kid I started collecting all 4 sports around 1988.

Went to strictly hockey around 93/94. Mainly Sergei Fedorov cards.

Stopped Hockey in 04/05 and went to football..the Lockout made me angry and all of my fave players went to new teams with the salary cap.

Started collecting all Seahawks in 04 with the main focus being super collecting Marcus Trufant.

2012 Trufant retired and finding cards of his I didn't have was maybe 1 a year. Needed a new player to super collect so I chose Kam Chancellor.

2018 I stopped collecting all Seahawks and did only Chancellor(and the 1 new Trufant per year that would pop up) as it was getting too expensive.

21/22 started collecting hockey again (I literally hadn't watched a single hockey game since 2006) since Seattle finally got a team again and football wax prices were out of hand. I wanted one of each Kraken card which was actually doable the 1st 2 seasons.

Current - I still collect all Kraken in a Kraken uni and Still super collect Kam Chancellors/Marcus Trufants. After trying to send an order home of 300+ Kraken from Epack and seeing the astronomical shipping price of $80 and the Canadian postal prices/strikes...I have cut back a ton on trading/collecting. I pretty much just do a group break of each multi pack product to get my base/fix.

[thoughtfreeze]

Probably once every year, it's completely natural for me.

You should check out the Stacking Slabs podcast, Brett mostly uses football and basketball as his canvas for conversation, but he's really good at expressing the exact mindset behind what you just described.

[chris_ac]

Ebbs and flows since 1993 when I consider to be the formal year I began pursuing sports cards. Absolute mix of MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL. Baseball and basketball at first then football and hockey mixed in by the late 90s. All the while sampled comic/movie trading cards, a bit of golf and even NASCAR for possibly up to 5 years, all retail level of course. Pulled away from basketball in 2006 and didn't come back till 2009. Everything was a scatter shot from Bowman baseball galore to Donruss Elite football and UD1/2 hockey every year practically.

Not until till the very end of 2009 did I make the biggest re-direct when I made a firm decision to start a player collection. Before that I swore I never would do that type of collecting focus but now in hindsight I appreciate the value in more than ever. You pursue the wide array of cards (even if it is oversaturation) to find your sweet spot in terms of sets/parallels/inserts/sigs etc that fit your favs that fuel the chase for what you hope is a full career of said player. There are reasons to move to other players like performance or health but you change for your reasons not the interwebs reasons.

You do you in this avenue of pastimes. And hopefully feel confident to share. The shared fandom and the cardboard accumulation you own should be part of the legit value in why we do this.

Find your slice of the card aisle and revel in the rummage to keep the fun for everyone.

[odjickfan]

When I started 20 years ago, I was mostly building sets, and also collected Habs and Nordiques. After that, I started a Gino Odjick and a Marc-Antoine Pouliot collection. I got a bit into 80s rookies too. At the moment, I am seriously thinking of re-focusing my collection on Patrick Roy cards.

[stoopid]

Baseball and football as a kid in the 80s, then baseball as a young adult in the 2000s, now hockey as an adult adult since the pandemic. Hockey approach benefitted some from my prior (mostly unsuccessful) stints as a collector. Focused on players I watched/enjoyed mostly. Then narrowed down what type of sets to collect for those players. Now I have a PC player who recently retired, a PC player mid career so I can collect cards for them in newer sets, and a PC player who's playing but is expensive so only an occasional expensive insert or rookie card. Most everything else I do is to acquire cards for nominal flips or trades.

I'd say the evolution in hockey came with learning what sets, parallels, and inserts I liked. Takes time just to see most of them to know if I wanted them, and then the process of acquiring them for PC players can begin in earnest. I try to avoid hype and cards that are clearly in a bubble (usually new sets), as I don't expect to keep everything until I die (and burden my SO with having to resell all of them). Patience mostly pays off, I find cards rarely go up in value after release so waiting a few months is the sweet spot for getting a SP or SSP/low serial card. Long enough for the price to drop but not so long there's none for sale.

[Modojr]

A few times. I started out as a set builder and PCd Mike Modano. A few years later I added Rusty Klesla to my PC pursuits. I would start sets, never finish, and begin again next release year. I got burned out trying to keep it all together and felt like I was just chasing cards for the PC. Stepped away from the hobby for many years.

Came back about five years ago, started my Modano and Klesla PC again. Started set building UD MVP and UD S1 & S2. Only did that for about two years due to not truly being interested in what the products were offering. Started a new player PC, Elvis Merzlikins, but was only interested in rookie year stuff and autos. I went back to junk wax to build earlier Topps and UD sets of hockey and baseball and have really enjoyed that approach. Started a WNBA PC for Kamilla Cardoso as well. My current collecting habits are more focused than when I did it many years ago. If I miss something, that's okay, I don't dwell on it too much.

[Tones]

I would say I used to redirect it a lot more. But over the past few years I have changed it less and been more frugal about what I add to my personal collection, and the joy I get from finding more specific cards definitely out ways needing to always add new cards when new products just because it is new.

Focusing on a few handful of established players from the teams I support rather than all players (especially steering away from rookies/young players and being more veteran/retired players). As well as focusing on my favorite products (UC, The Cup, Premier, Stature) as the market is so diluted with so many products. Much rather chase that one big nice card than a dozen smaller ones.

So for like example; I collect Bruins, but my main focus is David Krejci
I also collect UConn alumni, but my main focus (and I mean for hockey who else would I collection from UConn lol) is Tage Thompson

David Krejci does not get a lot of hobby love, so when he does I am always super excited

[Archangel1775]

Well, I was going to start a Goalie set with 1996 Select Certified Mirror Golds because they were supposed to be limited to 30, got one card in recently, and then 100 count lots showed up on eBay yesterday. So now I'm adjusting fire.