Set building.......is it worth it?

[doniceage]

I don't care if they''re not worth anything. All I'm saying is that considering the high cost f cards these days you would think that people would value base cards a little more.

The only reason the cards cost more these days are the fools spending crazy money on the crazy cards that might get high grades. Hence, every new release is being bought like crazy and going up on the secondary market when offered. Not sure how you would think Base cards should be worth more because prices are higher as it not the base cards driving the prices. Yes, folks are paying more for the packs but they are paying for the hits in the packs not the base cards. That is just my two cents.

Just do what makes you happy.

Don

[cjb]

Even before the increase most card boxes were high compared to the cost of a base set on ebay

[cjb]

like i said before, I really don't love set building, but i feel obligated to finish set after i buy the hobby/retail box full of base cards.

[Savard18]

I've been in the hobby for over 15 years. During that period, I accumulated 7 3200 count boxes full of base cards. I have a shelf full of binders, a huge box full of inserts, 2 big storage boxes full of PC stuff. I'm sure many collectors are in a situation like mine, when at some point they judge they have too much stuff and just want to downsize and keep the bigger cards.

There are thousands of cases of hockey cards produced every year. Even common jerseys and autographs are available for cheap. There's just too much stuff out for the demand. That's where the low prices are coming from.

I'm in the same position as you, just imagine x10 because i break a ton of cards and I'm always buying card lots on eBay (I can't pass up a good deal on hockey cards, lol) so I get so much excess cards that I just have no interest in. I mean when I break all I really want are the "hits" and Blackhawks, parallels etc and superstars such as McDavid, Dre, Crosby, Malkin. Eichel etc but 90% I have no interest in.... And like I said I buy a lot of lots off of eBay and if they're large lots - you know 1,000+ cards - I've recently been telling the eBay seller which cards I want and they can keep the rest and do as they please with them - of course I give them the link to "Commons for Kids" and tell them to donate the excess I don't want to that charity.. I mean I don't want to pay shipping for cards I have no room for - especially when I already have them somewhere in the sea of madness I call my "card room", lol... Look, I have somewhere between 1.2 to 1.5 million cards .. If you don't know what that looks like just imagine a single car garage with nothing but 5,000 count boxes stacked 6 feet high taking up the entire garage... Obviously I don't store them like that - they're spread out in different areas but still - it's a lot of cards.... And it's funny because I've managed to accumulate all of them in a little under than 5 years, lol.. I mean by no means am I new to the hobby I just got out of it when I was in my late teens and then got back into it in my mid 30's...

And the crazy part is that I do have a lot of commons but my commons to stars ratio is much higher than most because I buy tons of lots on eBay, most of which are generally stars, superstars HOF'ers etc.. I have so much stuff that would be excellent for a card show but with Covid there really aren't any, and when there are they usually get canceled... I mean if this Covid nonsense continues and card shows get canceled in the spring I'm going to put an ad on craigslist and have a card show at my house (or perhaps on my uncles farm because he has a huge empty barn) and any dealer or collector that's interested in selling or trading some cards is more than welcome to come over to my pad an set up a table for free, no charge whatsoever - I mean it will essentially be a garage sale for cards.... Of course I will have to wait until spring because I'm in the Chicagoland area and if you don't know it gets really-really cold here and snows a lot in the winter, lol....

[rookmyster]

Its not about the value to me. Real collectors put the sets together because they love the hobby. Likely 90% of the SO called colllectors aren't there for the fun anymore. All about the mighty dollar. I have all 31 years of upper deck collected. Base and young guns. Will never sell and pass them down. I love to look at the cards daily reading the backs.so have FUN and keep collecting

[Savard18]

Its not about the value to me. Real collectors put the sets together because they love the hobby. Likely 90% of the SO called colllectors aren't there for the fun anymore. All about the mighty dollar. I have all 31 years of upper deck collected. Base and young guns. Will never sell and pass them down. I love to look at the cards daily reading the backs.so have FUN and keep collecting

I agree. Tho I don't collect many "modern" base sets, I'm really into collecting vintage sets er pretty much anything 1989-90 and earlier.... The only thing is that being a set collector these days with the internet and forums like SCF and others, eBay - it just makes collecting sets so easy that it's hardly a challenge... I mean back in the day you had to buy a bunch of packs to even get a starter set going, and when I was a kid like 10-11 years old I only got a few bucks for allowance, this is back in 1990, so with inflation, IDK, lol but packs were .50 cents so it took like a month just to get a starter set going, of course you still had to keep buying packs but at least you were at a point where you could start trading with friends but unfortunately most of my friends collected baseball - I did too - but hockey was my main passion but I figured out how to circumvent the lack of hockey card collectors among my circle of friends.. I would go to the LCS, ask Cal (that was the owners name) what he was buying or trading for, he would tell me and I would go out and make trades with my friends using my baseball cards as trade bait to get Cal the cards that were on his "want list" and of course I would trade the cards he wanted to him for packs or loose singles if he had any, I mean he always had a handful for demo reasons but I usually got all the cards from the demo stack that I needed. But I would do that just to complete my set, and thank goodness Cal was a nice guy because he would give me high BV in store credit for some really funky beat up cards, lol... I mean I know grade back in the 80's and early 90's wasn't a major issue collectors obsessed over for the most part - but it was still an issue, and boy he bought and or gave me store credit for some really "questionable cards", lol.... But hey that's where I started collecting vintage sets - Cal had plenty of vintage hockey and the cards in the 5,000 count boxes from 1973-74 to 79-80 were only a nickel a pop, and anything after 1979-80 was only 3 cents and of course everything before 73-74 was .15 cents a card, so I stuck with the vintage nickel cards, - Cal would sell me 25 vintage cards for a buck. Looking back he wasn't the most knowledgeable card shop owner when it came to hockey, but I did manage to complete my first vintage set which was 1976-77 Topps by the end of 1991 when I was 11, and it's funny because I completed the 76-77 Topps set before I completed the 90-91 "Topps set", and I say that because my 90-91 Topps set was more of a "hybrid" set, it was about 80% Topps and 20% OPC, lol. Who cares, I didn't because I was too proud of my 76-77 Topps set and the fact I had a set with a Trottier RC and even a Bobby Orr with the Blackhawks... Not the best of shape but for an 11-year-old I was thrilled..

So yea, building sets is good times if you're a true collector and you enjoy what it is you're collecting and assembling ...

Also, a little bit OT but still relevant.

Topps use to not only SP cards to make their sets more difficult to complete hence kids would buy more cards but another sneaky little "trick" they used to "trick" kids into buying more cards was "regional distribution"... Since short printing every card would have made absolutely no sense - what Topps would do is - for example make sure 70% of Tony Esposito's ended up outside of Chicago or Illinois in general then Topps would ensure that 70% of Reggie Leach's card ended up outside of California, which is why if you collected (I don't know when Topps stopped doing this but) in the 70's you probably had a few cards you had an over abundance of while you didn't have and your friends didn't have a particular card you needed to complete your set.. I mean if you were from California, you probably had plenty of Esposito's but couldn't find a Leach anywhere, but if you were in Chicago you had plenty of Leach's but you needed the Esposito... Of course neither were SP's - Topps just did that to get kids to buy more cards...It was a very cleaver tactic but very questionable as well.

[Stryfex]

I'm coming into this thread late - but it's an interesting one to me as I'm a set builder

Essentially what others have said is the short of it - collecting base sets (or anything else for that matter other than top 5% rookies or top 1% stars...but base sets in this thread's context) is just a labor of love and fun for the collector - zero value will EVER exist in base cards - ever....even base cards from the cup are worthless and they come from $1000+ boxes

The idea for most people is just to treat it like a little project to enjoy - a reason to sort through the cards and enjoy the photography and statistics or just the soothing feeling of checking items off a checklist until none are remaining - often the process is buying some wax because opening packs is super fun - but getting a bit more "value" for your wax money by spending time building the set rather than just opening the cards and looking for value

If you're looking at your closet and assessing the value of those base sets....stop collecting base sets!!

[Savard18]

Well this thread inspired me to start putting Canvas sets together, actually I knew I had a box of Canvas cards somewhere and I went looking for it and I finally found it after what seemed forever but I also got a nice surprise as well. Along with the Canvas was a nice stack of around 50 YG's and a few Canvas YG's to boot.. Nothing super huge beyond a Point, Sergachev, Werenski, Nylander and a Pavel Zacha who is pretty much a bust at this point, but none the less still a pleasant surprise.. I guess they're decent cards but they're not Matthews or Marner, lol but at least now I have a couple of nice partial Canvas sets to build, and they're going to be pretty challenging because the RET and POE's are pretty difficult cards to obtain.. I have partial sets from 15-16 to 18-19, obviously 15-16 is going to be the most difficult and hard on the wallet - I gotta figure out how I'm going to get both McDavid's - McDavid's Canvas YG and his POE are outright bonkers, I mean that's $2,500 and unlike vintage sets I cant get something in low grade as a "place holder" until I can afford to upgrade or have an opportunity to trade for an upgrade - so there are very little options there... Thankfully I have a bunch of RET so I have some of that out of the way... Of course I have to find a Matthews Canvas YG as well, crazy too because I have pulled at least a dozen of his regular YG's but never a Canvas unfortunately.... Of course at the same time I'm working on dozens of vintage sets as well. I've finished Topps from 1969-70 to 89-90 but OPC is proving to be a little more difficult - especially 72-73 OPC, it's those WHA high numbers that are hard to find but most of my other OPC sets from 69-70 to 89-90 are 90%+ complete or finished, the 80's are finished, yes I finished the 79-80 OPC set and yes the Gretzky is in terrible condition, lol - it's so "rough" it sticks out like a sore thumb, I cant wait to upgrade that card because overall outside of the Gretzky the rest of the set is pretty strong, I would say a solid NM-MT - but the Gretzky is hideous, I would say it's a "PSA Authentic" .....

But yea I collect those sets because I really enjoy vintage hockey cards and also the challenge, and honestly it's something I wanted since I was a kid.. My goal is to have all post war (WWII) hockey sets complete up to 89-90 before I'm 50 er 2030, so that leaves me 9 years but I know the further I go back the harder and way more expensive it's going to get. My immediate goal is to have the 70's complete by the end of the year including WHA, but those sets are relatively easy considering how small they are, and the same really goes for any OPC set from the 70's except for 72-73. The 72-73 Topps set was a breeze, lol I essentially had the set before I even decided to take on every post war set and I didn't even know it, I was only short like 7 cards, then the second I realized that I went on eBay and found someone selling 72-73 Topps and it was complete.

But yea, I have no desire to collect modern base sets - not even The Cup, I mean the only modern base set I would attack would be SPGU, but collecting a base set is impossible - or profoundly improbable considering there are only 7 "true base" sets from 2014-15 and 2015-16 in possible in existence and to my knowledge no one has completed either...

[30ranfordfan]

But yea, I have no desire to collect modern base sets - not even The Cup, I mean the only modern base set I would attack would be SPGU, but collecting a base set is impossible - or profoundly improbable considering there are only 7 "true base" sets from 2014-15 and 2015-16 in possible in existence and to my knowledge no one has completed either...

Count again, lol. There's only 1 possible base set from each of those years.... a quick scan, and I see Glenn Hall in 2015-16, and Laurent Brossoit in 2014-15. Both of them are 1/1s.

I really like that set, but it's close to impossible to complete.

[cjb]

Wow, I inspired someone