New or returning to card collecting on a budget

wertling137 · 05-01-2020, 07:58 PM

The big question is where should you start? Which sport or fan favorite is hot right now? What if I only have $100 to $150 disposable income to spend a month on card collecting. This is just my opinion and I think there are a few good pointers in this thread. Experts are free to add your own views. Here are mine.

The NBA rookies have been of fire for the last four years.
From my experience Prizm basketball hobby blasters or more loaded than Donruss Optic hobby blasters and other blasters within 100-150 range. Don’t just focus on basketball years 2017 -2020. Look at rookies form early years. Say you want spend $50-100 on a blaster and then $50 on rookies. All Stars with rings like Garnett, Duncan, Rasheed and Ray Allen. Preferably Skybox EX and Metals. Find Durant, Curry, Westbrook, and Harden rookies. Everybody is hoping the top rookies from the last four years have HOF careers but you don’t want to have card lots of only 5 players form 15 to 20 years from now and they don’t have any NBA Finals appearances. Yeah Sir Charles and Ewing were the two greatest big men with no rings but they only had like three rookie cards produced. Meanwhile Luka and Zion have like 10-20 variations rookie cards per set. Leonard, Lillard and some Greek Freak base cards are still affordable in a $20 to $100 range budget.

Don’t get too caught up with searching for autographs. I’ve seen a lot of case box breaks on YouTube and it’s very risky. It’s not for people on a budget. A case can promise four autos but remember its three rounds of the NBA draft and at least a hundred of Vets. Unless you can get them cheap from amazon. So I started back last year in November too late. I wish I’ve would had kept some $20 Prizm blasters unopened. Smh.

I was in elementary school in the 80s and of course most basketball fans got sucked into the Celtics, Lakers, Detroit and Bulls hype. As a kid you wanted the top players from those teams and once you got them you were pretty much done for that season. The NBA Hoops and Fleer era was very limited in the 80’s and early 90’s. Can you believe kids threw away starters inserts because it wasn’t the base card. The infamous Upper Deck stepped on the scene in 1990 and it brought a new vibe to basketball but that faded too. Needed something new to focus on and heard of a new NFL set. I remember spending $5 to $12 on “Action Packed” NFL football packs chasing 14kt or 18kt gold plated cards. Hoops and Flair was letting us kids down.

Started back around 2005 and had a folder full of some decent cards. Heard of a Upper Deck sets that was super expensive called Exquisite and Ultimate. I was working a full-time job at the time but wasn’t willing to spend $500 for a pack X of 5 cards. Maybe a $100 for Ultimate? Brought one pack from eBay and got a auto Hakeem hit that was worth $60 at the time. Needed some money and sold my folder for $200. Smh.

05-01-2020, 07:58 PM	#1
wertling137 Member Join Date: Apr 2020 Posts: 38 Wilson95@ Mercari	New or returning to card collecting on a budget The big question is where should you start? Which sport or fan favorite is hot right now? What if I only have $100 to $150 disposable income to spend a month on card collecting. This is just my opinion and I think there are a few good pointers in this thread. Experts are free to add your own views. Here are mine. The NBA rookies have been of fire for the last four years. From my experience Prizm basketball hobby blasters or more loaded than Donruss Optic hobby blasters and other blasters within 100-150 range. Don’t just focus on basketball years 2017 -2020. Look at rookies form early years. Say you want spend $50-100 on a blaster and then $50 on rookies. All Stars with rings like Garnett, Duncan, Rasheed and Ray Allen. Preferably Skybox EX and Metals. Find Durant, Curry, Westbrook, and Harden rookies. Everybody is hoping the top rookies from the last four years have HOF careers but you don’t want to have card lots of only 5 players form 15 to 20 years from now and they don’t have any NBA Finals appearances. Yeah Sir Charles and Ewing were the two greatest big men with no rings but they only had like three rookie cards produced. Meanwhile Luka and Zion have like 10-20 variations rookie cards per set. Leonard, Lillard and some Greek Freak base cards are still affordable in a $20 to $100 range budget. Don’t get too caught up with searching for autographs. I’ve seen a lot of case box breaks on YouTube and it’s very risky. It’s not for people on a budget. A case can promise four autos but remember its three rounds of the NBA draft and at least a hundred of Vets. Unless you can get them cheap from amazon. So I started back last year in November too late. I wish I’ve would had kept some $20 Prizm blasters unopened. Smh. I was in elementary school in the 80s and of course most basketball fans got sucked into the Celtics, Lakers, Detroit and Bulls hype. As a kid you wanted the top players from those teams and once you got them you were pretty much done for that season. The NBA Hoops and Fleer era was very limited in the 80’s and early 90’s. Can you believe kids threw away starters inserts because it wasn’t the base card. The infamous Upper Deck stepped on the scene in 1990 and it brought a new vibe to basketball but that faded too. Needed something new to focus on and heard of a new NFL set. I remember spending $5 to $12 on “Action Packed” NFL football packs chasing 14kt or 18kt gold plated cards. Hoops and Flair was letting us kids down. Started back around 2005 and had a folder full of some decent cards. Heard of a Upper Deck sets that was super expensive called Exquisite and Ultimate. I was working a full-time job at the time but wasn’t willing to spend $500 for a pack X of 5 cards. Maybe a $100 for Ultimate? Brought one pack from eBay and got a auto Hakeem hit that was worth $60 at the time. Needed some money and sold my folder for $200. Smh.