The End of a Player Collecting Era

Those of you that saw a particular post over on HI the other day or a recent Facebook status update will have sensed that this was coming.

For the past four-and-a-half years I have dedicated the great majority of my hobby time and energy to collecting anything and everything Carey Price. I did this not with an agenda to have "the best" collection or to merit a Super Collector badge; rather, my collecting was a reflection of my passion and dedication as a fan. I bought high during the rookie year frenzy, I ate up everything during the Centennial year, I stood solidly behind him during the annus horribilus that was 2009-10, I "chilled out" and loved the Vezina-candidate year that followed, and I was there through all of last year's on-ice debacle for the Canadiens. Nothing has changed when it comes to my support of Carey Price and my belief that he will play a central role in bringing a 25th Stanley Cup to the Montreal Canadiens.

But as a dedicated player collector, I just don't have the energy any more.

I could recite all the usual reasons: burn out, wallet burn out, the sheer volume of cards, the repetition of cards, the unattainability of so many cards, etc. My reasons are largely no different than those of many other collectors out there. I am not even the first person to step back from collecting Price in recent months. I've seen at least three other superb collections get broken up and sold/traded here, there, and eBay. I share the frustrations of my fellow collectors. I see guys that have invested even more into their PC's than I have just throw up their hands and say, "I can't do this anymore." Price has played 5 NHL seasons and there are already more than 2,000 cards of him in existence. It is an impossible task to keep pace when you're on a limited budget, and it is disheartening when there is so little originality from year-to-year. Take a look at 2012-13 Artifacts and see exactly what I mean. Oh look, there's a Tundra Trios of Carey, Subban, and Plekanec. Just like last year, except with an uglier design (no small feat) and smaller jersey pieces. I suppose I should be excited about the new Sapphire /85 parallel right? They haven't used that colour before!

So it is with that mentality that I have gone through my entire list of Carey Price cards and picked out nearly 400 of them that are going to be made available for trade or sale. Even with that, I still have close to 150 cards that I am, for the time being, keeping in my PC. I'm not ready to make a clean break, I'm not leaving the hobby, I'm just focusing on broadening some horizons and allowing myself to collect some pretty nice cards of other players I like. There will of course be new Price pickups but my days of worrying about checklists and parallels and such are over. At least for Carey. I still have that Gorges collection which is sitting pretty at well over 90% and as long as the cards remain fairly few and far between it is still a fun and enjoyable thing to get the new releases.

And that's the end of the era for me. If you've had your eye on some of my Price cards for a while, now's the time to make your move. The full list of what's available will be posted shortly in the Trading and Buying/Selling areas.

Thanks for reading, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on where things are at with you guys in the hobby too.

I started collecting cards more seriously 6-7 years ago during 05-06. Back then I didn't collect anything specific, just any cards that I liked. in 08-09 I stopped almost completely and didn't collect at all in 09-10 either. In 2011 I started getting back into it when I got my first job. Last year 11-12 is when I turned hardcore and started to focus on certain things, mainly Toronto Maple Leafs and also I decided to attempt to become a player collector and go after certain leafs more mainly Kessel and the 4 11-12 RCs, I also decided to try and supercollect Jake Gardiner, which I continue to do.

That being said even though I've only been a serious player collector for about a year, I feel what you're saying. Not only are there parallels of almost any rookie/base card (x22 sets for a superstar like price), there are countless inserts, jerseys, patches, autos and of course parallels of all of those half the time. And if you collect all 3 manufactures its even worse (depending on the player, no itg gardiner for me).
Anyways I'm at the point where I am still very much enjoying trying to piece together my different PC's but I can understand how you have gotten tired of it after years and years of the same thing.
Stick with your Gorges PC though!! It's not everyday someone owns over 90% of a players cards :P

I consider myself a player collector, I just don't feel the need to drive myself crazy trying to get EVERY card of my PC players. I focus in on the ones I like. If I think a card is ugly, I don't worry about trying to get one.

Collect for the love of the hobby man, don't stress yourself out with this needing to have every card. There will always be more cards released every month, so you can't stress it.

You just recited what I said to a buddy of mine 4 years ago when he asked me if he should keep collecting a player.

Dude, it's been this way FOREVER I am surprised many of you didn't get beat down by the monotony and redundancy sooner?

Austin, now only 8, started becoming disenchanted at 6. He hasn;t lost all his steam but a fair bit of it. Pretty astute for 8.

Look at this way: at least you weren't so deep invested/The top Price collector that you had all of Carey's big cards and now are left holding the bag hoping to make 40% back in the horrid economy. It can always be worse.

Best of luck with future hobby-related endeavors dudeskie, there is something for everyone on all budget levels, you'll find your niche. And it won't reduce your ability one bit to still be a big fan of Price!

There is another angle to this as well, a good one in regards to the NHL...now like the NBA, the NHL has so many fantastic Well Known star players, it is hard to resist having at least one card of all these great talents...

or this just could be me, when it comes to collecting, I am a fan of talent regardless of the "laundry", how can one not appreciate Datsyuk's exploits etc, but when it comes to the actually game, it is Bruins and their players all the way...

Rich, I feel the exact same way.

I've been collecting Jordan Eberle for about 3+ years now, and I'm very bored. The past few months I haven't enjoyed receiving my cards nearly as much as I did before. Even with some of the nicest cards in my collection, I look at it and say "oh that's nice", and then don't really look at it much after I scan it. When I do go through my cards, I don't really take the time to enjoy it. I just flip through them since there's so much of the same thing card after card. Hell, even the show and tell threads I put up have been an enormous waste of time.

The feelings seem the same for my uncle even. He was the one who got my started with the hobby, and over the past year he has lost the passion as well, and doesn't seem all too interested in the cards I get in the mail. Before, we would both be ecstatic as we opened the mail, now it's all the same old stuff.

I'm not quite at the point as you where I feel like I need to start piecing things together to sell(and frankly, there could not be a worst time to sell than right now), but I am going to start slowing down, and maybe diversify. There are about 3 cards(or types of cards) that I really want to get for my Eberle PC, but after that(when that will be, I don't know), I will be slowing down a lot more than I already have.

I miss the real passion, and all the mundane and monotonous sets aren't helping at all. I know I don't need everything and have never thought that I did, but so little is unique anymore so there's not many new cards too look forward to. I love collecting still, and am not stressed about it, I'm just getting bored.

I must admit it is very easy to lose motivation to keep trying to get every one of a player's cards. I have collected Anton Lander since his first cards were made, and I am only missing 5 UD/Panini cards that don't feature another player on the card (ie: RNH - why did UD start that madness, why?). You don't know how many times I stopped and asked myself, why am I doing this? However, I stuck with it, because I hate quitting (anything) and I am also an extreme perfectionist (almost too much sometimes).

i feel the same way buddy , i just give up on my tootoo collection n sold 6 of my tootoo 1/1 cards ,i just think there are too many brands n products the cards are not even worth the cardboard its printed on anymore . time for a major break n vacation , thanx nhl lol

Sorry to hear it Rich, definitely a bummer. I'm doing the exact same thing with my Callahan PC. He was in a ton of 11-12 sets and i was soooooo thrilled when i found out he was in Artifacts this year. Don't get me wrong, i enjoyed looking for a lot of the 11-12 releases, but its obvious that 12-13 will produce a lot of similar cards that 11-12 put out, so definitely limiting what I want.

I just sold a few of my nice limited RC's the other day, partly cause i can use the $ and because design was too similar that i can afford to let it go. Another thing that i realized is that i'm not a huge fan of photo shoot memorabilia, which is why as much as I liked my 07-08 Ultimate Debut Threads 3 color Patch Auto, I decided to let it go cause it wasn't something I really wanted, just a card that was on a "need list" at the time I got it. I'm thinking about just going for autographs now and nice game-used patches (the good thing about being included in Artifacts), and even autographs im not sure of as I may just stick with hard-signed, but idk yet.

But my main focus now is getting as many rookie year cards of Kovalchuk as I can within my budget, which I like because it's a definite number so I won't have to worry about new releases, and since it's kind of older there's still a chase for them

I don't really player collect but I do have my favourites (Sakic/Duchene/Kamensky/Forsberg etc). And whenever I can find a card for one of them for cheap then I go for it. They're pretty much all bases but I don't mind. I find it boring to have 10 different cards of a player from the same season, I'd rather have maybe 2 or 3 from that season and then 7 other cards for 7 different players.

But I can certainly empathize with someone who decides to collect a player and invests a lot in it but then just can't keep up. It's about being a completist and I think that's the problem us card collectors have. Some people keep watching good TV shows that turn bad (cough Simpsons cough) because we can't stand the thought of not watching it and the same sorta applies to collecting for a player.

I'd say if it's not fun for you to collect that one player then do whatever you do enjoy, you can certainly keep collecting at least a few Price cards per year. It's just that challenge of moving past that completist philosophy.