Build a Great Card Collection in 5 Simple Steps!
You don't have to own a card shop to put together an awesome sports card collection!
Each Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter For Collectors has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets!
This Week’s Newsletter Highlights!
⚾🏈🏀 BUILD A GREAT CARD COLLECTION IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
⚾🏈🏀 CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY!
As an Amazon Associate and a member of the eBay Partner Network, I earn commissions from qualifying purchases. Here’s a link to my Amazon storefront where I link to all my favorite card-collecting supplies. Thank you for supporting our affiliations by making purchases through us! Also, all sports card images come courtesy of BuySportsCards.com.
⚾🏈🏀 BUILD A GREAT CARD COLLECTION IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS
Everyone wants to build a great sports card collection, but “great” can be subjective, meaning many different things to different collectors.
The reasons someone wants to improve their card collection vary! Some might want to do it to improve their assets, some are competitive, and some just want to complete something!
When I returned to the hobby several years ago, my own goals changed a few times! Before, I collected anything and everything, from cheesy gas station cards to over-produced junk wax commons to beat-up cards of mediocre vintage players. Some might be more interested in those types of cards than me, but I wanted something different. With a wife and a future to think about, I wanted my collection to serve more as a savings account than anything else.
I realized that if I buy better cards which should hold their value – if not increase in value, then I can enjoy a beautiful collection while not irritating my beautiful wife!
Instead of seeing me spending $300 on a graded Jim Brown card, she can now see it as a $300 investment in a work of (cardboard) art!
Let’s discuss how you too can build a great card collection!
Step 1: Decide What You Want To Collect
Are you going to focus on rookie cards? Autographs? Rare cards? Vintage cards? Junk wax awesomeness?
Which sport? Which teams? Which players?
Map it all out, get an idea of what type of collection would make you happiest! For me, it’s having cards from my childhood and from my dad’s childhood. The best graded cards from the earliest years of the best players. For someone else, their idea of hobby happiness could be completing a set of cards from their birth year – or the birth years of their children. Some might want to only collect cards of Hall-of-Fame players, or cards of players in their team’s Hall of Fame!
As you can see, there are plenty of directions to go, but only you can decide what would make you happy. (Don’t fret too much because your idea of what makes you happy might change mid-collecting!)
Step 2: Set Your Standards
Figure out what your standards are for your cards and your collection. For instance, I don’t mind cards with poor centering, but I’m in the minority among most serious collectors. A centered card in a Collector’s Grade (one number above the decade it was produced) might be your standard.
Collector’s Grades Per Decade:
1950s: PSA/SGC 6
1960s: PSA/SGC 7
1970s: PSA/SGC 8
1980s: PSA/SGC 9
1990s: PSA/SGC 10
2000s: PSA/SGC 10
2010s: PSA/SGC 10
2020s: PSA/SGC 10
The bad news is – cards with those grades for those decades are usually expensive!
The good news is – you don’t have to have those same standards to have an awesome collection!
I’m usually good with a card graded the same as the decade (so a PSA/SGC 6 for a card from the ‘60s), or even a grade 1 below the decade the farther we go back (like a PSA/SGC 5 for a card from the ‘60s).
You also might only want PSA or SGC slabs. Maybe you only want licensed cards, which eliminates Panini baseball cards and Topps football cards from recent years for now.
Maybe your standard is the card must be a low-numbered card, /50 or fewer? Or on-card autos only? Lots of questions to answer here!
Step 3: Create Your Want List of Awesomeness
Start a spreadsheet (I’m partial to Google Sheets because it connects to my Gmail and Google Drive) and start filling out a WANT IT list on one tab. Fill out GOT IT list on another tab, so you can move over any cards you bought from your WANT IT list. This keeps you from accidentally buying duplicates.
Tracking your collection is pretty important, so you can see what you paid, when you paid it, when it shipped/delivered, tracking numbers, current value and profit. Joining Card Ladder can help you solve a lot of this, but you can also just do the extra work on your own for free, which can also be fun, since it’s about cards!
Step 4: Make a Realistic Budget / Gameplan
This one is important, since you can turn a Happy Hobby into a Crappy Hobby awfully quick if you end up overspending on cards that don’t hold any value, which could include buying wax, getting into breaks and prospecting!
Look at the upcoming card release calendar to see which products are expected to come out and when, so you can save accordingly. For instance, 2025 Topps Series 1 came out in mid-February, so you can try not to spend in January in expectations of buying a hobby or a jumbo box.
Also, when considering buying singles, buy a few months after that products release, or during a sport’s offseason, so you can compete with fewer owners and spend less.
Step 5: Sell Off Things That Don’t Align with Your Collection
Remember, you can’t collect everything, so turn that into a good thing, by selling off things that don’t make our collection awesome!
Let’s say you bought a hobby box of 2025 Topps Heritage and you pulled some fun cards you want to keep. Rather than box up all the other cards, maybe you buy a pack of team bags, combine them with some of your other unwanted cards, put them in a team bag and sell them on eBay for $3-$10, depending on the team and the cards. You can set eBay so they payout when you sell something, or you can have them hold it until you request it to be sent. This is a nice way to build up a little account, so you can turn 10 sold team bags into buying a nice numbered card of one of your favorite players!
⚾🏈🏀 NOCT Card Shipping Supplies!
Tired of worrying about your prized graded cards getting dinged up in the mail? Say hello to NOCT shipping supplies at NoCity.co — the ultimate solution made just for collectors like you (and your eBay customers!).
NOCT’s expertly crafted boxes and bubble mailer envelopes are designed to fit PSA slabs and raw cards snugly, keeping your treasures safe from bumps and bruises, whether you’re shipping to buyers or trading with friends. These products are made by collectors, for collectors!
Ready for a bonus? We’re giving away 10 FREE boxes and bubble mailers to one lucky podcast listener! To enter: Email me at gonoscards.com with “NO CITY Giveaway” in the subject line. Winner announced June 30!
Don’t risk your slabs. Ship with confidence! Visit NoCity.co and upgrade your shipping game!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win this free card from me: 1984 Topps Rickey Henderson #230!
What was the first season Topps Heritage came out?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com and you can win this 1984 Topps Rickey Henderson #230 card! Rather than take the first person who answers it right, I’ll do a random drawing of all the people who answer this question before midnight, Friday, May 30. The winner will be announced in the June 5 newsletter.
From May 15 newsletter: Which year/product saw the very first WNBA cards for sale? Prize: 2024 Prizm Monopoly WNBA Angel Reese WNBA16 rookie card. Answer this question before midnight, Friday, May 23. The winner will be announced in the May 29 newsletter.
From May 8 newsletter: What was the month/year of the very first Beckett Baseball magazine? Prize: 1969 Topps Johnny Podres #659. We didn’t get any winning guesses on this one, so we’ll save it for a future newsletter!
⚾🏈🏀Great 36-Card Display For $60!
Consider putting your cards in a great wall display, like the ones I bought that sit behind me in my videos! These 36-card displays are perfect for graded cards, or just your favorite cards in magnetic one-touch holders! They’re well made, UV protected, lockable, and you can get free two-day shipping through Amazon!
⚾🏀 CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY! 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson #482
Topps had one more swing during their Monopoly run between 1955 and 1981, which means the 1980 Topps set was the last time we’d see one card for each player. It marked the end of what many consider the vintage era, and despite a pretty nifty card design, ’80 Topps really just stands on the shoulders of one amazing rookie.
Rickey Henderson’s rookie card rules the Topps roost of the ‘80s!
Topps inexplicably didn’t make All-Star Rookie Cup cards between 1979 and 1986, but an even more egregious error is that Henderson didn’t even land on the 1979 Topps All-Star Rookie Team! All he did was steal 33 bags and score 49 runs in half a season! Can you imagine this ’80 rookie card with an All-Star Rookie Cup on it!?!
With a gem rate of 0.059%, it’s considered one of the toughest graded cards in PSA’s and SGC’s histories. I feel like this is because of a combination of reasons, including kids loving this card a little too much, and Topps Quality Control being at the end of a competitor-less era.
Either way, it’s a beauty – and every baseball card collector should own one – in any condition.
Coming Next Week!
⚾🏈🏀 11 REGRETS: WHY I’M THE DUMBEST COLLECTOR EVERR!
⚾ PATRICK’S PRIME PROSPECT PICKS!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
***Important Card-Collecting Articles on DavidGonos.com***
Connect with David Gonos on:
Email me: mailto:gonoscards@gmail.com
Have a #HappyHobby!
Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)
Great stuff as always David! I find that diversity is key to my collection, but after a few years back collecting, I am more focused on cards that carry more value to me, based on financial value and team/player value. To keep me focused on this newer goal (still a struggle at times) I need to be able to pass on new releases when they don't help towards my goals. To me that means less hobby boxes and more blasters to satisfy the joy of opening a product, but then more money goes toward the individual cards I want.
The other part for me is selling cards more often now. I love prospecting on a small scale ($5-$10) paper numbered cards for the most part. The goal was to see these guys grow and hit the big leagues and then sell for profit to help towards the goal above. The problem is it is hard to let go of those cards once they are in your collection. The question I usually remind myself of in that situation is "would you rather have a Cole Young /99 card or put that money you make towards Sidney Crosby card?"
The other factor in selling off some cards as mentioned is timing. Those 2025 Topps Heritage cards will sell more often for better price sooner rather than later with respect to the release date. Every other collector may be doing the same thing as you. The sports calendar also provided opportunity to sell. Kasperi Kapanen scores game winning goal in OT for the Oilers in playoffs: List what was probably a $3 YG card the next day and sell it for $8. Pay attention to what cards you own and what is happening with sports and you may have more luck selling, which will help with your ultimate collecting goals.
Great stuff here. I think new collectors should allow themselves some patience when determining what they want to collect. It took me awhile to kinda find what i like. With all of the ways to collects and tons of different sets kinda giving your time to explore whats out there is perfectly fine to do! The 60 graded case man that’s nice i may have to grab me one thats super affordable for the size