5 Steps To Building a Great Sports Card Collection! - Ep. 3.21

Everyone wants to build a great sports card collection, but the word great is very subjective. So here's my version of five simple steps on how to build a great sports car collection. Happy Hobby I'm David Goss. If you're a sports car collector and you're working with a limited budget man, that's what we do on this YouTube channel. That's what we do in this Happy Hobby Sports Card podcast. If you're listening to that and over our at our Happy Hobby Sports card newsletter@ghanis.substack.com Today we're talking about the five simple steps to build a great sports card collection. The reason someone wants to improve their card collection might vary. Some might want to do it to improve their assets. Some are competitive. They want to have a better collection than somebody else. 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, I just wanted it all. From cheesy gas station cards to overproduced junk wax commons to beat up cards of mediocre vintage players. Some might be more interested in those type of cards than me now, but I wanted something different. So with a wife and a future to think about, I wanted my collection to serve more as a savings account, a cardboard 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. See how that works? So instead of 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? On autographs? On rare cards? On vintage cards? Junk wax awesomeness? Pick one. Pick two. Which sport? Which teams? Which players? Map it all out. Get an idea of what type of collection would make you the 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. So let's say that again. The best grade of the earliest years of the best players. Now for someone else, their idea of happy 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. That's pretty awesome. As you can see, there's plenty of directions to go here, but only you can decide what would make you happy. So don't fret too much because your idea of what makes you happy might change mid collecting. So just figure out what makes you happy. Now step two 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 card collectors. They want a centered card. A centered card in a collector's grade, which which is actually in an investor's grade, which is one number above the decade that it was produced. That might be your standard. That's an investor's grade. You want a PSA 6 for a 1950s card, a PSA 7 for 1960s, PSA 8 1970s. Or maybe you want a collector's grade, which A collector's grade is the same grade as the decade. So a PSA 8 for an 80s card, PSA 9 for a 90s card. Makes sense. 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 around the same as the decade. So like a PSA 6 for a card from the 60s or even a grade below the decade. I don't mind a PSA 7 for an 80s card. I'm good with that. And the further farther back you go, it's even better. A PSA 5 for a great card from the 60s. I'm good with that. There's PSA fours that I'm fine with. You also might want just PSA or just SGC Slabs. Maybe you only want licensed cards. So maybe you don't want Panini Baseball. Maybe you don't want Topps Chrome Football unless it's when it's licensed. That eliminates, you know, a lot of cards right there. So that focuses your collection. Maybe your standard is the card must be a low numbered card like 50 or fewer or has to be an on card autograph only. Lots of questions to answer here, so you have to go through Figure out what you what your standards are. Number three Create your want list of awesomeness. Start a spreadsheet now. I'm partial to Google Sheets because it connects to my Gmail and Google Drive. Start filling out a want list on one tab now. Let me just tip you off real quick. If you become a happy hobby sports card collector on this newsletter@ghanis.substack.com just by becoming a free subscriber, you get automatically access to our Happy Hobby Collectors Checklist. That's a spreadsheet that has Want a want tab? Got it tab. It has a a grading tab so cards that you plan to get graded so you can have them all set up for the when you go to do a submission. So that comes to you free. You already have one available to you, so you're welcome to do that. And by doing that, it gives you a mobile. You know you have Google Sheets on your phone. You download that app now, you can check out your collection anywhere you are. You can make sure you don't accidentally buy a duplicate card if you don't want one. Tracking collection is pretty important so you can see what you paid, when you paid it, when it shipped, when it delivered, what the tracking numbers are, the current value and profit. You can join card letter that 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 just about cards, right? Hey, I thought I'd jump in here real quick. I wanted to remind you. Make sure you go download your free Happy Hobby Collection checklist which you can find@ghana's substack.com it's the happy Hobby Sports Card Collection Checklist. What is that you say? Well this is the ultimate tool for sports car collectors and you get it free when you subscribe to the Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter. By the way, it's a free newsletter. You can subscribe for free. Are you ready to take control of your collection? Elevate it to that next level? Don't miss your chance on getting this exclusive checklist, a powerful digital spreadsheet designed by collectors for collectors. Claim yours instantly whenever you sign up for the Happy Hobby Sports Card newsletter. You can easily track your sports cards on the go with our user friendly Google Sheet. Your entire collection is always at your fingertips. Whether you're at a local card shop, trade night, major card show. You can organize your best cards with the have tab. Like got it, have it, need it, all that stuff. This is your have tab. This is where you put all your best cards. The grades, all that good stuff. Any notes? You can build your dream want list here. What cards are you wanting? Put them in here. Stop wondering do I already own this card? What do I look for at the next show? What do I want to get? So make sure you check it out. Go to ghanis.substack.com and subscribe and you'll get an email where you can download the free Happy Hobby Collection Checklist. Step number four Make a realistic budget or game plan now this one's pretty important because you can turn a happy hobby into a crappy hobby pretty quick if you end up overspending on cards that don't hold much value, which could include buying wax or getting into breaks and prospecting. Look up the upcoming card release calendar to see which products are expected to come out and when so you can save accordingly. For instance, 2025 Top Series 1 usually comes out in mid February, so you can try to not spend too much in January and expectations of buying a hobby or a jumbo box when this comes out. Also, when considering buying singles, buy a few months after the product's release or during a sports off season so you can compete with fewer people. You don't have to battle other buyers as much. When it's in the off season, you can spend less Step 5 Sell off the 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 your collection awesome. As far as you're concerned, we're trying to make a great card collection. There's different definitions of great. Remember we said earlier, sell off the things that don't help make your collection great. Let's say you bought a hobby box, a 2025 Topps heritage, and you pulled some fun cards that you want to keep. Well, rather than box up all the other cards, maybe you buy a pack team bags Combine them with some of your unwanted cards, put them in a team bag, and sell them on eBay for three to ten bucks depending on the team and the cards. You can set ebay so they pay out 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 money in your account so you can turn 10 sold team bags into buying a nice numbered card of one of your favorite players. So those are my five tips for you. My my constant reader and constant listener. I appreciate that. I'm just trying to help. I'm trying to build a great card collection myself. So these were five simple steps that I think you might be able to take to heart and use in the future. I want to know what you think. Is there a step you disagreed with? Is there something you would add to it? I want to know in the comments or if you have something from the podcast you'd like to shoot me a Note@ghaniscardsmail.com Let me know. I want to hear it. Listen. Build a great card collection. It's. It's work, but it's a lot of fun. But in the end, you will certainly continue to have a happy hobby.