General Forum

Player Collections are a fun and affordable way to collect beyond complete sets.  With so many base sets and then inserts and parallels, I imagine most of us have limited funds for the hobby and a player collection is an affordable way to have examples of these various sets.

I'm curious, why did you pick a particular player for your player collection?  Was it because he was good?  Reminds you of your childhood?  Met him in person?

I'm not a set builder but a team collector. I do collect players from all sports that have the last name Chamberlain. Those players share the same last name as me.  Just seemed interesting to me to collect the same last name. 

Corban Knight, NHL

Born in High River AB, played Jr hockey in Okotoks AB, then after U of N. Dakota played his rookie season for Calgary and was on the farm in Abbotsford BC (where I live). Kind of a home grown talent, and after some time in FLA and PHI, he’s now in Russia.

He's my only player PC, my other collection is my hometown Flames

I met Archie Manning at one of my dad's company picnics back in 1972 or 1973.  I was able to play catch and talk to him.  This was early in my love for the Saints.  It is why I PC him separately from my Saints team sets.  I think I just got my 68th different auto in the mail today.

Small side PCs

Travis Wilson (baseball) — I went to school at St Bede's College (Christchurch) with him albiet a few years behind.

Sean Marks (basketball) — First New Zealander to make the NBA

Kirk Penney (basketball) — Second New Zealander to make the NBA

Main PC

Hakeem Olajuwon — I honestly don't know. I started collecting basketball cards in the mid '90s and Houston were good so that is no doubt part of it. One of my younger brothers claimed Jordan so I could not collect him and another had David Robinson and to a lesser degree Patrick Ewing. I think I just had a few cards of Olajuwon and I liked the way he played so started collecting him!

While I do have many sets in many sports, I have always been a team and player collector. You can see my teams in my signature below. As for my player collections, I'll only get into why I collect one or 2 of them in each sport.

First off is the Ozzie Smith collection: He is the true reason I started collecting cards in the beginning. My father was a Cardinals fan and I started watching games with him as a child in the mid-80's. Ozzie's backflips into position excited me as a child and when I was finally able to get my own packs and cards, Ozzie is who I wanted. He was the first person where I ever owned 100 total cards, as well as 200, 300, 400 and 500. Ozzie Smith cards are still my largest non-NASCAR single person collection.

As for football, I was a senior in high school before the Carolina Panthers played their 1st NFL game. Before that, I liked the 49ers and Packers. I had to drop the Niners when the Panthers ended up in the same division. I had to go with my home state team and can't root for 2 teams in the same division. I do still collect Jerry Rice, but it's not a big collection. I picked up the Patriots as my #3 team because their uniforms were just terrible back then, but really got more interested when they drafted Drew Bledsoe. My biggest player collections in the NFL would be DeAngelo Williams (RB for the Panthers for over a decade) and Steve Smith (WR for the Panthers for about 15 years), along with Brett Favre and Drew Bledsoe. I don't think anyone has passed 300 cards yet but they are all getting close.

NASCAR has been my main focus in cards for the past 15 years, while still collecting MLB and NFL cards. Mark Martin was my driver as a child. He was the first person to pass Ozzie Smith in my player card collection and that was around 2008 or so. But in the early 2000's, I was sure that Mark would retire soon and started looking for a new driver to collect. I was really impressed by Jimmie Johnson in his rookie season. So I started collecting him too. Not long after Martin passed Ozzie in my collection, Jimmie passed them both and has been the largest player collection ever since then. I added Jeff Gordon as a PC too since he was half-owner of Jimmie's car. With a couple of massive racing card acquisitions and several monster trades here, Gordon has also passed Ozzie and now Ricky Rudd has passed him too. I collected Rudd a little bit during his career as the Tide car was iconic to me in my youth.

In total cards, Davey Allison MIGHT be #1 overall, but I'm not counting it. I have thousands of copies of cards from the 20-card 1992 Texaco set. I found almost 300 packs of these a few years ago and busted them all chasing the AU card that I didn't find. I haven't added all the duplicates to this site or my PC count for him. I have at least 32 complete sets and I think I have at least 80 copies of 1 specific card in that set. I still have 301 different cards of him without counting all of those (or any other duplicates), which is pretty good for someone that really only had cards made from 1988 to 1993. The #1 WANT in my NASCAR collection is an AU card of Davey!!! Extremely rare since he died in 1992, but he is the last of the 16 drivers that I collect where I don't have a certified AU card.

I'll stop there instead of getting into basketball. I mostly stopped collecting those cards when the Hornets moved to New Orleans. I do still collect about 8 former NBA players, but the collections are no more than 100 cards each. Actually, I think every single one is in the HOF now.

Olajuwon is one of the guys I collect too!

I collect entire sports and topics. 

I collect Elton Brand because he's a local guy and I have been following him since high school. Although there have been other local people in the sport he became my favorite because of the person he is, the fact that he is local only means I got to learn about him before most everyone else. 

I collect Dale Earnhardt Jr. because he's my all-time favorite athlete in any sport. Unfortunately the cards from the first half of his career are all censored.

I collect Henrik Lundqvist because he's my favorite hockey player. 

I don't have anyone in non-sports I collect specifically. There's not a lot of cards issued like that. I focus mostly on automotive subjects, and I believe I have every card that shows a Chevrolet El Camino ever produced. 

Player collecting is just simply not who I am...but I do search for cards of those guys. 

In a perfect world I would collect HOFers.  But due to the politics and other BS at the HOF I needed another criteria.  I collect any player who made an all-star game or any player who made the top ten at least twice in any major stat.  That would be way too much to collect all cards of those, so I just chase the base cards.  

This is of course in addition to all Topps base sets 80-now

Sold my entire collection a while back, nothing great, mostly late 60's early 70's stuff. When I decided to get back into it, thought I'd not get into it too heavily and just collect a player. Little did I know how things had changed. Didn't realize there were so many card companies, all the parallel and insert cards, autos, relics, etc. 

Longoria was the logical choice for me since I had always been a Rays fan since their inception and he was the "Face of the Franchise" loved watching him and cheering him on even before I got back into collecting. Plus it doesn't hurt that by all accounts he seems like a likable, upstanding and all around good guy.