There are five different Cubs players that I collect. Some I go after harder than others. My collection has two parts, the team sets and the players. If I have a card of the player in the team sets, I won't necessarily duplicate it for the player collection.
Regular readers should be very familiar with two of the players that I collect. I write about them often. You'll also be surprised when you see which player I've got the most of.
Here we go:
Why do I collect him? A couple years after I got back into collecting, I decided I wanted to start a player collection of a current Cub. Starlin Castro was the obvious choice, but he was very hot at the time and too pricey for me. So I gravitated to Darwin Barney. I like the way he played and the way he presented himself on the field. He was also not a big name so I didn't think there would be much competition for his cards and the prices would be affordable.
I was right. During his time with the Cubs I was able to get almost all of his current cards and parallels except for the really low numbered cards. I was also able to go back and get minor league and college cards. It was a fun chase.
Cards in Player Collection: 192
Cards in Set Collection: 44
Total Number of Darwin Barney cards: 236
Why do I collect him? Easy answer here - Billy is my all-time favorite Cub. Kinda makes sense to collect you favorite guy. A couple years ago I decided to try and get all of his cards on the PSA master collection set. I got off to a good start but have stalled lately. Most of what I have left are very rare and very expensive cards.
Cards in Player Collection: 295
Cards in Set Collection: 115
Total Number of Billy Williams cards: 410
Why do I collect him? Another easy answer - he's Mr. Cub. Gotta have him if you collect the Cubs. I'm not as intense with his as with Billy's because there is way too much out there and it would break the bank (no pun intended!). Besides, since he was in so many sets and inserts, I already have a decent number of his cards in the set collection. I could just cherry-pick cards for the player collection.
Cards in Player Collection: 195
Cards in Set Collection: 247
Total Number of cards: 442
Why do I collect him? I really just backed into being a Dawson collector. Several years ago a reader sent me a huge stack of Dawson cards and most were not in my set collection. Since I liked Dawson, I decided to use the stack as a start of a player collection. His is the smallest player collection, though the total number of cards is up there because he was with the Cubs during the junk wax era
Cards in Player Collection: 68
Cards in Set Collection: 217
Total Number of cards: 285
Why do I collect him? Ryno was my favorite Cub of the '80s and '90s, so collecting him was an easy choice. It was also an easy choice because he was in just about every set of that era, often with multiple cards. By not even trying I have, by far, more cards of Ryne Sandberg than of any other Cub. It's not even close.
Cards in Player Collection: 180
Cards in Set Collection: 634
Total Number of cards: 814
I never would have guessed Ryno leads the way in total number of cards. That's a little bit of a shocker!
ReplyDeleteAre any of you player collections in binders?
I keep my player collection cards in penny sleeves and then in boxes. They are in chronological order and I'd have to be constantly switching them when new ones were added it I put them in binders. With boxes I just put the new cards in the proper place in the stack.
DeleteAn accurate count of the cards in your player collections... as well as your set collections? That's impressive. I'm way too lazy to dig up the number of Gwynns... let alone the 7 to 10 other guys I collect.
ReplyDelete