How to Build A Themed Sports Card Collection

Sports card collecting is one of the most popular pastimes for sports enthusiasts, but it often becomes overwhelmingly expensive if you do not focus your collecting habits. Creating a themed collection is one way to avoid that cost. Here is how to do it.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

How to Choose Your Theme

1. Before you can begin focusing your collecting habits, you must find the theme that fits you. Start by considering if you are simply a sports fan, or do you like one sport in particular?
2. Once you decide the sports you wish to collect, you will then want to ask yourself if you want to collect a certain team, player or complete set of sports cards in a given set. Some people collect alumni of a particular college, or even a particular high school. Whatever fits your fancy will do just fine.
3. Another themed sports card collection idea is to collect only certain positions. For example, you could collect only the cards of pitchers in baseball or quarterbacks in football.
4. One of the most popular types of themed sports card collections is to collect only the first card of a given player. This is called rookie card collecting, and is popular as these cards tend to hold and gain value. If you are looking to invest, this is the way to go.

How to Acquire the Cards

5. Now that you have focused your collection to a theme, you will want to start by going through your current collection and pulling out all the cards that fit your theme and putting them into some type of order. The more organized your collection is, the better you will enjoy it.
6. Once your collection is pulled out and organized, you will want to go through your remaining collection and pull out any valuable cards that you can use to trade for more cards to fit your theme. You can do this by joining a collecting group, or at your local hobby shop. Also, sports card shows and flea markets are great sources of trading partners.
7. Now you will want to find a way to document your cards so that you know what you have, or can find out at a glance. Nothing is more frustrating than to be unsure if you need a card to complete your collection and not being able to find out quickly.
8. Finally, enjoy your themed sports card collection. Take the time to read the statistics and background information about the different athletes. You will be surprised at the interesting information on the backs of those cardboard treasures.