Who, What, & How I Collect

In the hobby, there is a variety of collectors and card buyers. Depending on the style of collector you are, it will also alter your approach to purchasing.
Few Examples of Styles of Collectors: 

• Team Collectors


• Player Collector


• Achievement Collectors (500HR, 30/30, etc.)


• HOF Collectors 


• Prospect Collectors


• Auto/Relic Collector  

I wanted to take time to share Who I personally collect, What products I buy and What I'm expecting from them, and then How I organize my cards.
See some of my collection here: 
I have uploaded my some of my cards to my Sports Card Album:
http://sportscardalbum.com/u/teddyballgame

Who I PC

#1 Nolan Ryan - Super PC
   I will purchase and pursue any and all Nolan Ryan Cards out there. Nolan is my Super PC. I'm fighting a losing battle on this one because there are currently 10,590 cards totaling $284,216. Nevertheless, I still try to pick up any Nolan that I do not currently have.


#2 Jose Canseco & Ted Williams - PC
  I PC both Canseco and Ted. I do not have near as many of these cards as I do my Nolans, but will still grab any I find.
#3 Vintage & 80's, 90's RC
  The rookie card still excites me. When I was a kid, autos and relics didn't exist. What we all wanted was the Rookie. It was the chase for finding the RC for the player who was hot or just made it to the big leagues. I still collect RC's just like it was the 80's and will always buy an extra notable RC no matter how many I have.

#4 Rangers
  I keep a binder of All Topps Flagship Rangers. I am currently pursuing every single Rangers base card that was released since 1972, I'm about 20% there.
#5 Campain/Political 
  I love political cards: Presidential Predictors, inserts, political events, Americana, etc. 
I am very non-partisan when it comes to cards, I will collect anything. The main aspect of collecting political cards that grabs me is that Baseball is such a huge part of American culture, past & present. It is America's pastime, and regardless of current & future popularity it is, as they say, as American as Apple Pie.

#6 Vintage 
  I love older cards. Anything Pre-1980 is something I will pick up. I really prefer spending money here as opposed to spending money on new boxes. My older card collection is not huge, but it is probably the quickest growing part of my collection. 

What Products I Buy

  I think I'm an easy sell for card companies. I'm not a high dollar guy. My goal with buying boxes isn't to find the Mega Hit and then flip it on the internet for a small chunk of change. I buy boxes because I believe the product is fun, I like the look of the base card, I like the parallel or inserts, and I hope to get a few fun cards out of it.
My expectations are fairly low when I buy a box: 

• I'm not expecting a huge hit


• I'm not planning to resell the cards


• I'm not gambling 


• I want a few fun parallels, some cool inserts, a chunk of good looking base, and a few hits. 

Buying a box to me is to get a taste of the product. If I love the product and it was fun to break, I'll buy another box. If there are specific cards I want to pursue, I will find and buy them on comc.com or ebay.com
For me, buying & ripping a box is about the fun and experience. Here are recent products I think are fun and enjoy ripping: Allen & Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Heritage, Lineage, Flagship, Opening Day, Bowman DPP, Chrome, Platinum, Panini Cooperstown, Americana, Golden Age.
The majority of my card purchases are buying a specific card. If I didn't get a card I was really hoping to get in a box, I'll buy it. I'd rather spend a few bucks on the card, than buying pack after pack trying to pull the one I was wanting.

How I Organize

BASE CARDS
The majority of my base collection is in super shoeboxes divided by product and by year.

COMPLETE SETS 
I keep any completed set or a set I'm working on in binders.
This is also where my 1972-Current All Topps Rangers cards live.

PC
Any Player in my PC I keep in toploaders in their own Shoe Box

Stars
I also keep all Stars divided in their own Super Shoe Boxes.

Hope the little glimpse into my world of collecting can give you a couple of ideas for your own collection.

Who do you collect and How do you organize your collection?

Leave a comment or tweet me some photos.

Ryan Braun Card Values: Biogenesis Style

I've got a running tally going of Ryan Braun's card values. From July to August, there was a $46 increase in book value. He also increased 12 base cards, 1 Mem card, 1 Auto, & 6 Serial numbered cards. If you spread the increase evenly only over those new cards, it's a $2.30 value per each card. With the Biogenesis  suspensions expected to be doled out today (t-minus 20 minutes from when this was written), it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months with the values. Stay posted to see... 
 

Topps Redemtion & Customer Service Post coming soon...

I have read way too tweets, post, forums, etc. hating on Topps & their customer service. Personally, I am a huge fan of Topps. Topps reminds me so much of my childhood. Classic designs, great products, and since I collect baseball, that's about the only way to get the fix. (that's another topic for another time)

I know you can't make everyone happy, but a business has to have delighting all customers as their goal. My experience with Topps has been positive. I've felt I recieved a great value out of the boxes I've broken, I mostly always dig their products, and feel they always have something new to offer, which keeps me coming back. The only real frustration I've felt is from sending in the Bowman wrapper redemption this year a few days late and missing out. 

I plan to do a two part blog post

Part 1: My experience with Topps Customer Service. I have not yet had a reason to reach out to customer service, but I have a few outstanding redemptions. This week I plan to call and document the experience. I currently have two outstanding redemptions, The Draft Picks & Prospects Shaffer Auto was submitted in December 2012, the Bowman Platinum Tyrell Jenkins was submitted in November 2012.

Part 2: A Business plan that I would suggest if I was in charge of Topps Customer Service.
In the real world, I run a successful retail store and have had over a decade of customer service experience from a management position. I believe improving customer experience is something I'm pretty good at, so I want to take my crack on what I would do if I were Topps.


All of this comes from a respect and care for Topps. I want nothing more than for the hobby I love to continue to grow and for the collectors to be happy with one of the largest companies in the industry.

Upcoming Releases - Coming Blog Reviews

Upcoming Releases

Here are the boxes I plan to buy for the rest of the year.
I plan to rip each on video and post to my youtube channel and then do a blog review of each. 

Release Date	Set Name
8/2	Bowman Platinum Baseball
8/7	Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball
8/28	Topps Tier One Baseball
9/4	Topps Finest Baseball
9/18	Topps Chrome Baseball
10/2	Bowman Chrome Baseball
10/14	Topps Update Series Baseball
November	Topps 75th
12/4	Topps Five Star Baseball
12/18	Bowman Sterling Baseball

2013 Bowman Platinum - Retail Review

Just bought a box of Bowman Platinum of the retail persuasion. Platinum is easily one of my favorite products of the year. The things that draw me to Platinum is the quality of the cards, players in checklist, and the value. I really dig the focus on the player only with a high quality card that has a high-end look but isn't a $300 box. The other great thing about BP is the shared focus between stars and prospects. The base set includes 100 cards of big leaguers and then another base set of 100 cards of prospects. Other great finds in this product are the beautiful Chrome Prospect cards, Cutting edge stars, Bowman Black, lots of great refractors, autos, & relics. There is a lot to chase in this product, scope it out in the Cardboard Connection Checklist.

The Break

I bought a single Blaster from Target to see what we could find in Retail.

Here are some of the hits I pulled in the blaster:

The base set includes Blue, Sapphire, & Ruby parallels.
(Gold Beltre & Gio, Blue McCutchen)

 The Chrome Prospect cards are awesome, haven't gotten many refractors yet, but these really look great. The player is slightly raised on the card, might have to get this whole set.

Top Prospects checklist has 50 cards, with Parallel die cuts # to 25.

Cutting Edge Stars set has 50 cards, also features Autos and Relics.

Got an Auto in my Retail Blaster, Beau Taylor. Great Looking card, on card auto, very clean and nice design.

The Blaster 8 packs with 32 total cards:

1 Auto: Beau Taylor
1 Cutting Edge Star: Dylan Bundy
1 Top Prospect
2 Chrome Prospects
1 Chrome Prospects Refractor
1 Blue Parallel of Base Set
2 Gold Parallels of Base Set
13 Prospect Base
10 Base

 I will probably pick up another blaster from retail, but I definitely plan to buy a few hobby boxes from Nick's Sports Cards here in Dallas. When I get the hobby boxes, I will definitely post a video and then do a Hobby Review.