What do I need to know to start collecting baseball cards?

[Yaga]

I've been collecting cards as far back as I remember... It's only been basketball and UFC and I stopped collecting UFC a couple of years back as it's all sticker autos and the same stuff over and over. And for basketball, I'm just tired of Panini garbage. I miss Topps Chrome and refractors and fun stuff like that.

I'm a casual fan and watch a bit of bball here and there. My wife and I got into it quite a bit in the playoffs last year, mainly because the Jays were back in it again and we're up here in Canada.

So I'd like to start collecting baseball a bit but taking a look at stuff out there, it seems quite a bit different than bball. Guys seem to have rookie cards, pre rookie cards, and stuff in between which span years apart. In basketball it's really simple, but baseball seems different.

What are the best products to get? Nothing crazy high end or anything. Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome? We get limited baseball retail here and I picked up a few blasters of Topps Chrome last year but barely got a thing... no autos and I think only a few serial #'d cards with nothing even low numbered. So is hobby the way to go? I'd buy hobby more around here, but it's all hockey hockey hockey, and when I order from Blowout, it's like 35 bucks to ship here ugh.

I'm a sucker for refractors and colorful stuff and it seems like there is a lotttttt of it in baseball. Which ones are generally the most popular? In basketball it's always Topps Chrome / Panini Prizm. Is Topps Chrome the big one in baseball?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

[dasiegel]

Most people in this section could write a book about it. It's completely different than basketball, not sure about how UFC works.

A few quick tips:

Decide if you wanna collect the stars of tomorrow (prospects in the minors) or the stars of today (veterans and rookies). Bowman Chrome cards and autos (and their colored parallels) are the cream of the crop for prospects. When a guy like Mike Trout becomes Mike Trout, the card you would want would be his Bowman Chrome Autograph or any colored parallel. Bowman releases Bowman in May, Bowman Chrome in Sept and Bowman Draft in Nov., all of them have "Bowman Chrome cards." Confusing right?! For lower end their are other Bowman products to look at like Inception and Platinum and a ton of others.

For veteran cards there are too many to list. There are fan favorite brands like regular Topps, Topps Chrome (for some of the best rookies and shiny stuff) and brands with HOFers and top stars like Heritage.

Then there are oddball cards like Allen and Ginter and Gypsy Queen with a bunch of SP cards, and stuff where you have to check the checklist to see if the card in your hand is good or not lol.

So it's very different from bball, a bit more geared for the collector rather than the int'l flip market. If you want that buy and flip, rip and flip stuff I'd say stick to prospect cards.

Hope that helps.

[Yaga]

Originally Posted by dasiegel

Most people in this section could write a book about it. It's completely different than basketball, not sure about how UFC works.

A few quick tips:

Decide if you wanna collect the stars of tomorrow (prospects in the minors) or the stars of today (veterans and rookies). Bowman Chrome cards and autos (and their colored parallels) are the cream of the crop for prospects. When a guy like Mike Trout becomes Mike Trout, the card you would want would be his Bowman Chrome Autograph or any colored parallel. Bowman releases Bowman in May, Bowman Chrome in Sept and Bowman Draft in Nov., all of them have "Bowman Chrome cards." Confusing right?! For lower end their are other Bowman products to look at like Inception and Platinum and a ton of others.

For veteran cards there are too many to list. There are fan favorite brands like regular Topps, Topps Chrome (for some of the best rookies and shiny stuff) and brands with HOFers and top stars like Heritage.

Then there are oddball cards like Allen and Ginter and Gypsy Queen with a bunch of SP cards, and stuff where you have to check the checklist to see if the card in your hand is good or not lol.

So it's very different from bball, a bit more geared for the collector rather than the int'l flip market. If you want that buy and flip, rip and flip stuff I'd say stick to prospect cards.

Hope that helps.

Definitely helps a lot thanks! I'm a rookie collector and love to try and pick future stars, so I'm going that route.

One question... when you say...

"Bowman releases Bowman in May, Bowman Chrome in Sept and Bowman Draft in Nov., all of them have "Bowman Chrome cards." Confusing right?"

What's the difference between these 3? Can a player have a rookie in all 3 in the same year? In basketball before, there was just Bowman, so there were no different Bowman options to buy. Is there a better one of these 3 Bowman to buy if I were looking to buy boxes this year?

[dasiegel]

Originally Posted by Yaga

Definitely helps a lot thanks! I'm a rookie collector and love to try and pick future stars, so I'm going that route.

One question... when you say...

"Bowman releases Bowman in May, Bowman Chrome in Sept and Bowman Draft in Nov., all of them have "Bowman Chrome cards." Confusing right?"

What's the difference between these 3? Can a player have a rookie in all 3 in the same year? In basketball before, there was just Bowman, so there were no different Bowman options to buy. Is there a better one of these 3 Bowman to buy if I were looking to buy boxes this year?

People here might try to explain it to you in a way that makes sense... it just doesn't! In Bowman products there are paper cards, cards with a chrome finish (chrome cards like in old bball) and refractors/colored refractors etc. Bowman and Bowman Chrome release players who (usually definitely not always) haven't had a prospect auto before or maybe had one in a prior release. Each time they have a product they usually pick a player or 2 to feature and use as the guy to make people wanna open the product aka Harper, Trout, Bryant, Machado, Seager, whoever a big name is at the time. Bowman draft focuses mostly on the players in that Summer's draft and is a nice one to focus on because if any of them pan out, they are slightly cheaper on average I'd say than the bigger prospect names from the other two. From a collector standpoint you get to follow them from draft to as long as you keep their cards as well.

I would say no to having 3 "rookies" in the same year, the word being quoted because card snobs will tell you that a prospect card is not a true rookie bc of 25 different reasons including not have the RC logo. But it's whatever. At the end of the day you collect what you want and if you check ebay about 15 different cards are considered "rookies" of each player vs bball where there is one year and any card from that year is the rookie. Minor leagues obviously make that different, another reason why some "rookie" collectors say Topps chrome is the best true rookie card.

[mrveggieman]

I can't advise you on what to do because our situations are different but here's what works for me. I live in Atlanta and follow college baseball. I like to collect and graph the college prospects as they come into to graph GA Tech and GA State. I also pick up a couple of certified autos of the prospects that I followed in college. It's fun to see them progress throughout their college and pro careers. As far as what brands I buy I stick to low end so I can use them for TTM and IP autos but if there is a single card from a higher end product I will buy or trade for it individually.

[ToppsCollector1]

People seem to care more about relics and autographs (especially prospects) than they do of regular base cards

[deemsterz33]

Originally Posted by ToppsCollector1

People seem to care more about relics and autographs (especially prospects) than they do of regular base cards

Base RCs are starting to make a surge

[rrd111]

Originally Posted by deemsterz33

Base RCs are starting to make a surge

Agree completely here. I think the Base RC & Chrome RC are starting to have appeal again. Whether its because of affordability or availability they are for the mostpart doing better then Jersey cards....

[mrchipz]

Originally Posted by rrd111

Agree completely here. I think the Base RC & Chrome RC are starting to have appeal again. Whether its because of affordability or availability they are for the mostpart doing better then Jersey cards....

triple agree with that. especially in the basketball card market as well. autos and relics are just over rated and over saturated now. give me a nice base rc or parallels of it that have a nice photo and design any day over an auto.

[hairysasquatch]

Buy Bowman. Don't buy unlicensed Poopnini garbage.

[Hallco]

Go on Ebay and find card designs that appeal to you...then find the checklist for the ones you like...then maybe start with putting together a Blue Jays team set for those.

Sent from my LG-H740 using Tapatalk

[Yaga]

Originally Posted by Hallco

Go on Ebay and find card designs that appeal to you...then find the checklist for the ones you like...then maybe start with putting together a Blue Jays team set for those.

Sent from my LG-H740 using Tapatalk

Ya that's great advice! I was actually looking at the 2016 Bowman's beat refractors on comc and they're so cheap... Was looking at Bautista and a few other Jays and I'll probably do that. They look like beautiful cards especially when I'm comparing them to crappy panini NBA stuff

[mjwoop]

If you're planning to buy into Bowman/Bowman Chrome/Bowman Draft case breaks, make sure you develop a working knowledge of which prospects have autos in each set (and which team their card is assigned to in each set). There are some good online checklist resources that can help you out. I'm surprised quite often by what some teams end up selling for in ebay breaks, and it's obvious that the bidder has the sets confused.

[WHyFLy]

I recently got back into baseball and I've been a huge Basketball collector as well. From what I hear, I would definitely recommend the Bowman trilogy as something to get invested in. The concept of Bowman is to bring us "tomorrow's stars." Bowman is always released end of April/Early may and is the first taste we get where both paper and chrome variations of Prospects AND Rookies are available to us. You get both copies and parallels. Bowman Chrome basically is an updated list with new Prospects and Rookies who were not in the original Bowman. Same concepts occur here. Bowman Draft contains NO rookies and primarily focuses on the draftee's during the Summer's draft.

As mentioned above prospect card aka pre-rookie cards have different copies. The very 1st card would have 1st-Bowman Card printed and that is Actually the first card printed of the player in a pro uniform. After that prospect cards can be printed of a player say the following years bowman, but it will not have that 1st bowman card logo. Usually the most valued card is the 1st-bowman card. I will note, not every prospect has an auto in the same year of his 1st-bowman card (Example Freddie Freeman where in 07 He had his 1st Bowman card and his 1st Bowman Auto was in 09).

It's a bit confusing at first, but you'll get a handle of it fairly quickly. Reading that you are a rookie guy seems to me that you will enjoy prospecting aka following a player from his first year in the minors to hopefully when he goes pro.

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by hairysasquatch

Buy Bowman. Don't buy unlicensed Poopnini garbage.

Or buy Topps. Don't waste your money on cards where the players look like they are playing in cheap plain pajamas.

[hairysasquatch]

Originally Posted by Big35Hurt

Or buy Topps. Don't waste your money on cards where the players look like they are playing in cheap plain pajamas.

Bowman shows prospects in MLB uniforms.

Airbrushed unlicensed Poopnini logo - less garbage is the one with the plain pajamas vibe.

[6celtics33]

Baseball is king of tradition and nostalgia. This is the beginning, middle, and end of what you need to know for baseball collecting. Let that wash over you.

http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/b...ll-update.html

[notoriousrmb]

Buy what you like, and what appeals to you.

As soon as you start collecting what every random talking head on here thinks is the "best card" you'll realize your collection has no direction and you'll be hoarding a bunch of stuff that has no actual meaning to you.

Look at a couple cards of your favorite player and buy the ones you think look the best. As soon as you start worrying about values, this hobby loses a lot of fun.

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by hairysasquatch

Bowman shows prospects in MLB uniforms.

Airbrushed unlicensed Poopnini logo - less garbage is the one with the plain pajamas vibe.

Bowman is fine. It's the airburshed junk that looks plain as day that I can't stand.

[cbuskstwar]

Buy singles, don't buy wax

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by cbuskstwar

Buy singles, don't buy wax

I agree with this. Wax is fun, but I feel like you get stuck with a lot of unwanted cards and the value you get out of it is a fraction of what you spend.

[cardsharkk]

Chrome is king for baseball especially auto rcs

[webb_jr]

Originally Posted by hairysasquatch

Buy Bowman. Don't buy unlicensed Poopnini garbage.

Amen Brother! Some of the older Panini (early NT and Classics especially) was ok for a while, but man, they put sooooo little effort into their products now. Middle schoolers could make better designs.

[Yaga]

Originally Posted by cbuskstwar

Buy singles, don't buy wax

Oh ok... I was going to bust we boxes of Bowman.

Any advice on some good prospects or rookies to get started on?

[WHyFLy]

Originally Posted by Yaga

Oh ok... I was going to bust we boxes of Bowman.

Any advice on some good prospects or rookies to get started on?

Well, for that, it may be hard for some to give out information on which prospects or rookies are ones to look out for. Each prospector has a few they key on and invest in for the long-term and tend not to give out information like that to avoid others "stealing" their possible pick-ups. What I may suggest is focus on your favorite team and do research on which prospects are the top in your farm system and go from there. Also do research on which prospects are being released in this years Bowman as each day a new name is added to the list.

For example, being a Braves fan, when 2015 Bowman came out I heavily invested in Ozzie Albies (his 1st year in Bowman). I ended up cashing out when I thought I was done collecting Baseball for a bit a few months back for about $30 a piece Raw Base Autos (I was picking his stuff out at the time of release and even a few weeks after at around $6-8 a piece). It'll probably keep going up until he is finally called up to the Bigs hopefully by this september!

The point being is prospecting is a long-term investment. It's very fun and always keeps you motivated to keep checking in on the 2-3 players you choose to invest in. Of course, this is also a hit or miss, but with some practice you will notice which players have serious potential and which do not.

In all honesty, buying singles is always the way to go; however, busting a box or two of the New Bowman would always be nice. I usually tend to do that along with Draft at the end of the year, just to get an itch out. Just make sure you do your homework and are willing to invest the time to making sure you know exactly who you want to get.