Collecting On A Budget-Sports Card Secrets!

[@jameshoppo7202]

I just collect whatever I think looks good. I can get excited over a $2 refractor if it's a player I like and the design of the card looks good. I'm not trying to make any money or invest, just enjoying the cards for what they are and building a PC that brings me some joy.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

JOY is an underrated and often forgotten about part of the hobby.

[@louiem5985]

You are so correct. This weekend went to a flee market and found $1 dollar box . I pick up a 1962 World series game card and some Nolan Ryan ones. Love the old look of them, plus felt good when finding those kind of cards that other people think are trash or no good.

[@mostmodern]

I know that "on a budget" is subjective, but lordy Philmington, do you count your discontinued McKinley bills like they're nickels in a jar?

[@MPsCards]

There's a key word I keep hearing... "fun." That's the point, isn't it? I think too many lose sight of that.

[@jasonvtsportsguy2692]

Thanks for sharing the love of the hobby! Collect what you love!

[@lastcalll2291]

I collect for my kids. They're very young so I'm looking 15-20 years out so there's no pressure to sell or anything.

[@Briguycollectables]

This was one of your best episodes yet! As a collector (And at times investor as well), I can attest that having a diverse collection is the best way to stay in the hobby. At times, yes there will be that big purchase/trade that hopefully lands you ahead. For the rest of the time, finding your niche with a collectables journey that is both fun and rewarding is key. I also have binders - with miscellaneous cards that I like - as well as a Carlton Fisk active era PC, and other budget friendly projects on the go.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Appreciate it, Bri! And thanks for sharing your side PC projects!

[@Gamecock0828]

I think Phil didn’t understand the assignment. “For low cost collecting I buy black parallels where you can get a single card of a middle of the road rookie for under $100!!” I’m going to tell my wife I’m going to start collecting only black parallels because they’re budget friendly…I’ll let you know what she says after she banishes me to the couch for the remainder of 2024!! Haha love the videos y’all keep it up!!! Best page on KZbin!

[@Philmington]

😂

[@markinnes4264]

For the price of a blaster box once a week you can buy something great for your collection.. Buying hobby boxes now is a way to enjoy pain.... so the same money in singles will get you a card in the off season now that you would never get out of a full case of product. It's great to get the cards that make you happy to look at in a collection. There's 150 years of old cards out there sellers are hoping to move.

[@Bryan45552]

Don't let the influencers make you think binders are bad. Zip binders provide great protection as long as you're not jamming cards in there without sleeves. In the lines of Phil, the Gold /20XX from flagship are exceptional cards to collect. Some current comps of relevant guys include Skenes $90, Chourio $45, Langford $40, Merrill $40, and even Julio PSA 9 $130 and Bobby Witt $150 raw. All of those are around to or equal to the cost of a flagship hobby box.

[@danielginsburg9558]

I like to collect low grade slabbed vintage baseball cards and early Allen & Ginter cards. I love the Cosmic Yoshinobu Yamamoto card where it looks like he will get abducted and probed by alien ships.

[@Yankees1600]

Love it - I LOVE collecting pitchers because they are wildly undervalued in the hobby. Case in point - I am super high on Clarke Schmidt. He had a 2.85 ERA last year with a 2.0 WAR in 16 starts (injury) and looked even better than that. I LOVE the 2021 spectra baseball standalone and just bought a Rookie patch auto /5 with a jersey button (player used) for $20 and I LOVE the card

[@anthonyc8963]

My trick is to...wait, I can't tell you, or others might steal it....

[@sisypheanhope1316]

I PULLED A MARINO RIVERIA PLATINUM 1/1 FROM A RETAIL BOX LAST YEAR

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

NICE!

[@dsphillips16]

Best show on KZbin IMO.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

thank you sir!

[@dljtwo]

Great episode guys. Scottie, I've recently taken to doing a binder collection of the parallels for my PC players and it's a lot of fun watching the collection come together for such little money. It's very rewarding. Also, great advice on the COMC card seeling... I have so many parallels and numbered cards that I'm going to just let sit in boxes and this would be a great way to finance some chase cards that I want to get.

[@BoomCollectors]

Great tips. There is no right way to collect, as long as we're having fun.

[@matthewmartin9347]

Great episode guys! Thanks for the tip on BSC, Ty. Already found some great stuff on there!

[@kerouac906]

My new player PC side project is to try & get one card of every Topps design (1952-present) for a player. Between Topps Heritage, Archives, the flagship 35th anny, Topps Minor League Heritage, Chrome Platinum, etc. I've been able to get a good chunk of the designs for modern players, but there's still some I'm playing the waiting game for. Doesn't matter if it's a parallel to me, so it can be done on the cheap.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Jeff here: this is an ambitious and awesome project!

[@Space321978]

I’ve been enjoying collecting Topps player runs. I’m working on Rickey Henderson and Nolan Ryan. The rookies are pricey but the others are reasonable.

[@CletusMoon]

I've done a refractor set similar to Scott, it's a fun way to do a complete set and rainbow/parallel chase at the same time!

[@hughporter399]

I've been collecting the different versions of the Ohtani record card from this years update. I really like the image and the cards are very affordable for an Ohtani. Having the most fun collecting since I was a kid pulling a 3$ Conseco

[@cardsncrypto5819]

im a huge pokemon card collector i lost interest in it at a young age, due to my first collection getting stolen, and then my second time collecting, my father burned them on the grille. then i got into yugioh... i love the way yugioh cards look... so cool... now im back into pokemon again, and sports cards (kinda always been in and out of sports tho)

[@ryanra44]

Another solid episode. For fun in the hobby I like to buy parallels of today’s biggest stars from non-rookie years. Gold minted Soto, Ohtani Refractors, Acuna image variations etc. a lot of them can be found for under $40

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Love it!

[@louiem5985]

This was awesome show since I'm in that type of group of buying cards. Can't buy the expensive cards but I buy cards that I like and how they look. it's what I enjoy finding those special cards that other people don't think to much about it. Glad you had T-Pott on the show big follower of him. Keep up the great videos.

[@MikelTulp]

T Pitt you need to do a deep dive on what formats people are finding the debut patches in, are they mostly breakers? Mostly collectors , finding them in retail? I think as this releases gets older I’d like to know what was found, where and who? It’d be a killer video. We know Elly, was in a breakers delight, pulled by a breaker but see if you can track down all 200

[@waruv]

One thing i have ongoing are mini projects (top 100 mlb players, 2004 Red Sox, etc) where the guidance is theme and eye appeal. You can do an inexpensive build and spend a lot of time getting there

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Jeff here: love these ideas! Ongoing projects are the best.

[@coopstain1728]

COMC= 5% OF THE CARDS ARE AT COMPS OR BELOW....... 95% OF THE CARDS ARE PRICED WAY TOO HIGH.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

That’s true. Have to find people that take (reasonable!) offers. Sometimes it’s a hunt.

[@sfosoxfan]

Love this idea and it's a great way to keep engaged if priced out of or waiting for PC rarities that never show up. Image based collecting is a ton of fun. I've been picking up cards with Fenway's Green Monster on them. The true fun is finding opposing players at Fenway with a wall shot, example from 2024 would be the Orioles team card with Gunnar and Holliday (card name "Soaring Confidence"), clearly it's at Fenway. Easy to pick up a decent parallel of that for cheap. Older cards of pitchers hitting, dudes in sunglasses, etc, so many ways to take image based collecting.

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Jeff here: that is such a cool idea!

[@JamesBrown-g1t]

Hey to the guy on the bottom left corner, I have a Paul Molitor 1/1 bat patch card and it's a Upper Deck and I have had it for over 20 years and it's in my PC and I pulled it out of a box of 2001 Upper Deck! I also pulled a 1/1 Carlton Fisk jersey patch card so I was very lucky to pull 2 1/1's out of the same box and that's in my PC as well!!

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Jeff here: that’s awesome! Must feel incredible pulling a 1/1 out of a box! And to have a box with TWO!? Crazy! 🍻

[@chuckwarnimont8993]

Opening old wax. Recently saw Topps Big Cards from 1988 and got a box of all 3 series to open and collected the whole set plus some for $30. Also like the Bowman from that time where the cards were taller, which most people don't like so they are cheap. Plus old wax can come with free gum!

[@chrisfree9]

Living bi curiously is so hip

[@JohnMiller-jj9kx]

I knew you guys all had a little boy inside. Thanks for sharing!

[@scoremulti]

I have a couple good hobby shops nearby and I’ve gotten more enjoyment rummaging through their stock and collecting what they’ve got that interests me, getting off eBay and just enjoying the stuff in hand/in store has worked and I spend less overall and less frequently

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Good call on perusing the LCS

[@godisgreat8462]

Awesome as always 🎉

[@Blabbin_Bout_Slabbin]

Thank you!

[@MikelTulp]

My budget allows me to open wax of only 4 products, Topps Paper, Topps Chrome, Upper Deck Hockey and Stadiumclub. All others just collect singles

[@NinjaSquirrel30]

Budget collecting is 80-90% of the hobby Good idea for regular focus on it on different aspects guys. ✌️ ⚾

[@dacryptkeeper6836]

If you want to guarantee your collection will decline in value, invest in pitchers!!!!

[@danielginsburg9558]

That's why I'm not spending serious money on Skenes. I have a few raw cards but that's it.

[@MGAF688]

Fun can mean many things to many people. Fun has often been missed in the wild (money chasing) pursuit of hobbies meant for ENJOYMENT. Although flipping cards for profit might be fun for certain collectors/hobbyists! It just feels like there is a % of barnacles in the hobby who have no love for the hobby. They are just arbitragers floating through and wouldn't know the difference between baseball and football. Those people are the scum that overtook the hobby in 2020, 21, and into 22 (and driving prices up for certain 2024 products like Topps Chrome Update).

[@MonsterCollects]

I loved Kolten Wong as a kid and so now I have 100s of parallels and autos of him! Haha I can’t buying his cards

[@MonsterCollects]

Can’t stop*

[@rschreck97]

I see after a long period of looking at 80’s and 90’s as just junk wax, people are discovering the unique sets/inserts and are pushing value there. I feel 2000’s cards will get that treatment eventually too and are currently in their “forgotten” time sans ichiro, pujols, and a few others. I’m having fun picking up cheap chromes of great players from the Mariners of that era-Edgar Martinez (underrated hof), Mike Cameron, Brett Boone, later Ichiro but consolidating slowly into bigger Ichiro, Kenji Jojima, Jamie Moyer. All fun players that I grew up liking and can get sweet looking cards for $30 or less. Even some of the “mid end” that are $100-$200 are really cool if one wants to save for a month or two (or just buy) to get. Heritage/archives back then have some sweet hof on card auto’s that are under $100 too.

[@chrisc4264]

It's not easy when my two main PC guys are both HOFers. I have to avoid graded cards for one. I refuse to pay PSA 9 prices for raw also. I try to buy in bulk whenever possible because some sellers will give you more of a discount.

[@murphy2965]

I like Cosmic Chrome… there I said it.

[@u_s_a_cards]

Topps Chrome Cosmic is awesome. On-card autos, lots of colors but not a ton of parallels, and the autos are hard to hit. Not sure why this show poo poos Cosmic 🤷‍♂️

[@waruv]

I mean...a $450 product with hard to hit autos and parallels really feels depressing in the 2024 card collecting world tbh

[@u_s_a_cards]

@ I won't disagree, but the singles that you can pick up from a product like that are awesome. And rare. Opening almost any kind of box these days is depressing.

[@robertbrillhart5961]

Hey spitballin guys, will topps making the series 1 & 2 black parallel #’d/73 and the update #’d/74 affect the black parallel moving forward? Think 2025 series 1 be #’d/74 or 75

[@stevehorne6049]

Love the discounted prices of college cards for the pc. Same player, same auto, lower price

[@chrishayes4166]

Is Scott like 25yo? His love for 2011 is like my (and Ty's from what I've seen) love for 96-98 sets as it was the peak of my childhood collecting as a 10-12yo. And also just one of the best periods in cards ever, coincidentally. Player/team collecting in meaningful/low print/high demand sets has been my favorite low cost way to collect for a long time now. Got a favorite team/player in the late 90s who isn't Griffey Jordan Kobe etc? Especially in baseball you can still find sweet low print, first of their kind sets of your favorite players for less than basically any hobby box (and often far less). Same with the early 2000s. Even 2018 I've gathered so many awesome, sick looking #'d parallels from that elite topps release of my favorite players of that era for literally 1's of dollars.

[@t-pott4504]

Scott is actually 17

[@chrishayes4166]

@@t-pott4504 17 year old with 2 great YT channels plus the Gem Masters Larry Walker. What a legend.

[@Philmington]

He’s around 30 but got into baseball in his adolescent years

[@MPsCards]

I like to go picking from value boxes and getting cards of my team (Blue Jays). If I don't have a base, I'll start there and then try to replace it with interesting parallel(s).

[@andrewdouglas332]

When I'm on a budget I like to look for 1952 Mantles in PSA 5's instead of 7's

[@4HoopsAndHomers]

Still trying to figure out what Phil is collecting? It went from collecting cards of players with “funny hats” to I collect BLACK Parallels 😳lol…I personally have a “Gatorade bath” binder, I keep all the Stadium Club packs I rip and page them up, and a Military Veteran ball player binder going.

[@kainslance]

I picked up a black black gold Chourio to 299 for 40 bucks

[@chrisfree9]

A black black huh

[@johnnylv5452]

Fantastic 4 again!!!! 😎👌💯🔥🔥🔥

[@ChrisBrown-ek5yh]

I am jealous of that votto /50 for $3.

[@jackburgess4208]

We not gonna talk about COMC

[@t-pott4504]

you must have missed 6:45

[@fliplife67]

For my budget thanks to all the greed in people etc there isn’t real enjoyment in buying any sports cards when U make minimum wage.

[@TheBargainBoxer]

Video about cards on a budget and Phil talks about $500 cards??? Outta touch much, Phil????

[@outwest100az]

Just a different vibe, tension you can feel through the screen. Kiss and make up already whomever the parties might be. Who knows it's probably me, sorry I even brought it up. I have started a Tovar collection and he, to me, has star written all over. If he can cut down on the strikeouts, he can become a Rockies legend. A bit too dramatic maybe?

[@Franz-f8w]

Caitlin Clark and WNBA cards, next years winners hopefully