Player Collections - What does that entail these days?
I've always liked the idea of boiling down my personal collection to just a few players, teams or themes. For the past couple years, though I haven't amassed too many new cards, I've decided to focus on the following: Nolan Ryan (over 700 unique cards), MLB Hall of Fame Rookies (as well as other sports, but focus on baseball) and Colorado Rockies prospect autographs. Of course, I still collect vintage and pre-war baseball cards, Denver Broncos, and much more, but I've decided to focus my personal collection on just those few themes. I've also thought about throwing another player into the mix, Rockies' third-baseman Nolan Arenado. I've been following him closely for a number of years as he moved through the Rockies farm system ranks and, undoubtedly, he's become my go-to guy for the Rockies. I love everything about him as a baseball player, and I've thought that he might be an interesting one to start building another player collection around. He doesn't (yet) have the super star status of Troy Tulowitzki or Carlos Gonzalez, so I figured he'd be an easier one to look at from the beginning. Though, his name is quickly becoming known, and already he's thought to be (deservedly) one of the best third basemen in the league, so I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more inserts and cool cards of his in the coming years as he becomes more popular with collectors. His cards only date back to 2009, when his first prospect and draft cards were issued, so why not?
I couldn't find a really thorough checklist out there already, so I decided to go about making my own. I figured this would be an interesting experiment. I know that there are parallels, short-prints, inserts, etc., out the wahoo when it comes to cards these days, but even still, how many can there be of a guy who's only been in the bigs for two seasons? Well, about three hours worth of compiling a spreadsheet on his known existing cards has told me one thing - aiming to "complete" a player collection, EVEN OF A YOUNG PLAYER who hasn't been around very long, is not really feasible. Granted, so many of the cards are not worth much, and can be had for next to nothing, but for any given set/issue, there are so many variations, and some of those are very rare and hard to come by. For just about any given card that is printed these days, there seems to be upwards of 8-10 variations, some of them numbered in increasingly rarer increments - #'d/199, /99, /50, /25, /10, /5 and of course, the always expensive #1/1 (only one card in existence). A simple eBay search will show you exactly what probably isn't feasible to own.
Bowman Starling "Gold Canary Diamond Refractor" #1/1 - only $2k on the 'bay
So, player collecting certainly isn't what it was like back in the late '80s and early '90s, but I figure, thats ok, that just means there's more to chase. As long as one doesn't set their collecting expectations too high (having a "complete" player collection, for example), I figure player collecting can still be a lot of fun. I'm not sure where my Arenado collection is going to take me yet. So far, I've only got a bunch of base rookie cards and a single patch/auto. But given how much I enjoy watching that kid play ball, I think I'll keep my checklist handy, continue to add to it, and see how many cards I can come by.
Feel free to take a peek at my Nolan Arenado baseball card spreadsheet. I've made it on Google docs and will keep it publicly viewable. It's no where near being complete yet - I know there's a lot that is missing still, so I'll continue to add to it as I can. If anything, it just keeps me VERY aware of just how much is out there.