With the recent trade sending Luka to my favourite team, I think I want to start prepping myself for a new player PC once he starts having Lakers cards in releases. I have quite an in depth Gasol PC with a focus on pretty much all his playing-days Lakers cards which is manageable given the amount of cards he had compared to what more recent players have.
My question is: how do you decide on what to collect of your favourite player? I like to have a laser focus to stay on track and budget, instead of just “what you like” which is so much.
Any advice on how to approach this new journey will be much appreciated!
If it's not a quality patch, auto, or patch/auto, then only go for the nicest / most limited parallels that you can budget. Luka isn't cheap, but if you're able to afford the gold parallels, go for gold. Otherwise go for the most limited you can afford. I'd stay away from building rainbows, it simply isn't economically sensible in this hyper inflated market and you should go for quality over quantity.
It is tough collecting new releases imo. A big thing with modern releases is patience. There are exceptions to the rule, but don't pay a ton for a silver prizm because they will go down eventually. I have slowed way down on newer Kukoc stuff because there is so much and prices are too high. I definitely would not recommend going for everything unless you are a billionaire LOL! Hopefully that helps, but if you need to discuss further let me know.
I probably can't help because I'm definitely a "what I like" kind of collector. I don't have like a long term plan when collecting my team, I just go after cards I like. When I pick up one card I like, I look for another card I like and decide to pursue it. Rinse and repeat. If you want a laser focus, I think look at Panini's previous five years of releases and just peruse COMC and eBay. Decide what sets, base, inserts, products you like and try to make a focused, cohesive list of the type of collection you'd want. E.g I think the Donruss laser parallels are beautiful, so I always am picking up Kings Donruss lasers. Luka Laker laser collection is super focused. Find something like that you like and go for it. Bear in mind this is Panini's last season with the license (I think?) so Topps will be coming back to make Luka Laker cards next year.
There are so many ways to collect nowadays and it can become overwhelming at times. The first thing to consider is your budget. Your budget will determine on whether you focus on quality over quantity or vice versa.
With ultramodern I would focus on quality over quantity. Chase inserts with no (or VERY limited) parallels. They don’t need to be Blank Slates, Downtowns, Kabooms etc. There are plenty case hits, SP, and SSP out there to choose from.
If you are looking for quantity, then narrow the sets you are interested in and focus on parallel chasing (rainbow chasing) or limit to Gold parallels #’d to /10.
At the end, there are plenty of ways to collect you favorite player.
@topgemcards on IG
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Collecting Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway Cards
I have so many thoughts on this topic. I’m a Celtics fan but as a collector I tend to go more towards the player collecting versus the team collecting. I have a player collection that traditionally would be consider a “super collector”. The number of releases and parallels these days almost make player collecting at the “super collector” level impossible. That being said I got started by identifying one or two releases I really loved and focusing on collecting those player sets/rainbows. As the hobby progressed I adapted my approach. The other way to do it in the current market would be to focus on a specific category such as on-card autos, game used relics, inserts, gold parallels, etc.
