General Forum

Hi,

For those who are completing sets, especially cheap sets like the junk wax era 80s and 90s Topps baseball, is it worth it for you to spend money on chasing individual cards, 9 pocket sleeves, and binders?  Wouldn't it be easier, and less costly, to just buy the complete sets online?

I mean, for those junk wax cards, it seems the sleeves and binder itself costs more than the massive 792 card set.

Where is the fun in that, i hand collate most of my sets by buying in bulk

shane

Totally agree.  Through bulk purchases or trading here.

I must have 30-40 junk wax sets I'm trying to complete that way.

Sure, it would be easier, and much cheaper as well; but like someone already mentioned, Where's the fun in that? 

I’ve often thought about this with new sets.  I wonder if it would be better to just wait until the complete set is released.  However I enjoy opening packs of cards, and I also enjoy insert sets as well.  Getting a complete set would be much more cost effective, but I’m also essentially paying for the enjoyment as well.  And I don’t normally expect to complete any sets that come out anyways.  I just like to get a little bit to enjoy each year.  
 

This also reminded me of something.  I used to really like MLB Showdown when I was growing up.  Me and my friend had a ton of fun playing that game.  Part of the fun was buying packs here and there, and pulling a big name that could be added to your lineup.  Since we were kids we couldn’t buy very many packs.  So showing up to my friends house with Alex Rodriguez in the lineup and Mariano Rivera in my bullpen from new packs I bought was something special and fun.  Then one day, he tells me that his mom bought him the complete all star game set that has all the cards of the players in the all star game that year.  And then somehow, it wasn’t so much fun anymore.     To this day I think it was a bad decision to release that set.  Sure, you could always ignore the cards from that set when playing, but you knew deep down you had Barry Bonds and Randy Johnson and  Sammy Sosa just stacked up ready to go and that pulling their cards from a pack wouldn’t be the same anymore. 

Even if you did just buy the complete set, what makes you think most still wouldn't buy binders and sleeves for them? If that is the route they take to show off their cards, I don't think buying a complete set would change how they display them.

Having said that, many people like the chase.  You have to remember that a lot of people that "chase" the 80s and 90s cards grew up in those eras or ones before. So they've been building those sets since they were released or at least just now getting around to collecting them (some for the second time since many left the hobby to come back).  The ones who have been building since their release probably have almost half the set, and it would be just as costly at this point to but a complete set making the ones they have duplicates to get rid of anyways.

On top of that, for the older collector's the other enjoyment of collecting and hand collating the set versus straight up buying the complete set is back in the day it was a lot easier to trade.  I loved sitting on the playground trying to trade cards with classmates.  Its the trading aspect that I bet got a lot hooked on collecting and why they still choose this method.

Not to mention, unless the complete sets are still sealed I wouldn't trust buying them, who knows who has rummaged through and mixed up cards.  Even sealed sets still have issues with missing cards and duplicates. The price of sealed sets even older ones from the junk wax era have risen in price too, so now isn't the right time to try it either.

I will admit I don't set build, but for those reasons, its why I would rather build the set versus buying it outright.  If I had more of an income maybe I would buy the complete sets, but trading a few cards at a time for few I need is still the cheaper route especially when you don't care how long it takes to finish the set.  At least in my opinion.

Ive recently started trying to collect complete junk wax sets. To do this I buy large lots and hand collate, with the eventual intention of using the extras to trade for my missing pics. As far as whether it is worth it to get pages, sleeves, binders, etc? Well if your expecting to do this to turn a profit, probably not. However, if your doing it for the fun and joy of collecting, do it however you want. For me, I am currently just storing them in 800ct boxes, although eventually I would very much love to put them in pages and binders because I love to display my collection. I know that there will most likely never be value there to condone this, but to me that isn't the point. My son and I recently decided we wanted to collect the 2023 topps set together and the joy on his face as we rip open packs, put the cards in our binder, and cataloging them is priceless. 

So, you guys primarily do it for enjoyment, as a fun exercise to chase the individual cards and organize them in binders, without any regard to building value for the future?

Do you not anticipate selling your cards in the future for profit?  Do you not perceive them as an investment? 

Correct.  Zero percent of my enjoyment of collecting comes from potential financial gain.  Couldn't care less about grading, breaking, anything like that.

I collect cards purely for the enjoyment and bonding with my child and do not plan on selling my collection.

"Do you not anticipate selling your cards in the future for profit?  Do you not perceive them as an investment?"

short answer no if that is why you collect then you are frankly doing it wrong.

Hobbies are about doing something I enjoy, I build sets because I get a sense of accomplishment when I complete a set. Other then my player collections and my Edward Vela cards I don't normally store my sets in binders I store them in boxes. I use binders for my player collections and sets in progress.