Type Collectors
 

Does anyone consider themselves a type collector? I've honestly only heard this term recently - I think from the main/vintage baseball card board. My understanding is the goal is to have one of each type of card. Does this definition sound about right or is there more to it?

For the mainstream sets from 35 Chicle forward, just obtaining one card seems pretty trivial and not all that hard on the wallet if one stays away from stars, at least until the modern era (mid to late 80s?) starts and we see so many companies issuing cards. I wouldn't be surprised here if a cutoff year had to be used, right?

And if you are a type collector, is this all you focus on, or do you also build some sets? Do you have a type checklist? Does it start with the Mayo set? Include items that are "card-like" but not cards such as matchbooks, photos?

I'm interested in hearing anyone's experience with football type collecting. My guess would be the challenge lies in the more obscure issues like Packers Walkers Cleaners, team issues, etc.

Thanks!

I think you got the definition right, John, as I understand it. Don't think I've met many straight 'type collectors' in football myself but they're definitely out there somewhere.

I think type collecting is popular in baseball because of the massive amount of sets that were produced pre-WWII, making it extremely difficult to obtain even one from all of the sets even in a particular decade! We don't have that sort of issue with football cards so perhaps that's why you don't see as many football type collectors.

I know as a kid I was a type collector for cards produced earlier than the 70s as I couldn't afford to do anything else! :)

jeff

Dead on. My type collection ends at 1979 for baseball. It is fun and you find stuff you didn't even know existed. I've gone so far to try to add an extreme MC, off register, blank back and wrong back for each type. It gets mind numbing but allows you to see the progress, or lack there of, companies made in manufacturing cards.

I've thought of a football type collection as well. If you count all the regionals, bread labels, etc; you would have one impressive (and massive collection) on your hands. I say go for it. It would be neat to see what other oddball sets you come up with to add to your type collection.

Thanks Jeff and Matt - great replies. This is something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while.

Jeff, makes perfect sense why this would be more prevalent on the baseball side than football.

Matt, I agree with you - there's probably enough out there to keep a collector like myself interested, but for the advanced football collector, they'd probably have to supplement type collecting in some way.... Personally, from my experience, one of the things I like about building a set is that I learn about the cards, variations, history of the players from that season, etc. - when I worked on HOF rookies, I didn't feel like I learned much because I'd grab a card or two from a set without much concern to its context and then move on.

I just went through my checklist and counted 299 different sets that include football cards between the 1880s and 1979. I did include things like bread labels, matchbooks, premiums, inserts, RPPCs, etc. to get to this total. I'm sure there's many more that I haven't even heard of and aren't in my spreadsheet.

Would love to see a thread that tries to show as many different types as possible!

jeff

John,

Bob Swick and a bunch of us put together a football type list for Gridiron Greats Magazine a few years back. I can't remember the specific issue off the top of my head but will look later.

Found it.

Gridiron Greats #35, Winter 2011

It is a prewar list only but is a neat and easy reference. Let me know if you need a copy.

I am a life long (well, collecting life anyway) baseball card type collector. There has been enough to keep me interested but my guess is there are a lot more different vintage baseball cards than football cards. I love type collecting and have very rarely collected any sets.

I tend to put sets together, and collect different types of cards of my favorite player(s). if i'm on the same page as yall. Generally the 70's though mid 80's.

I'm glad this sparked some discussion! I really like hearing what other collectors are passionate about and this is an area I don't think we talked about before. I actually had a similar idea to what Shawn mentioned about combining building a player set and type collecting. The best example I found was Chuck Bednarik - his player set has nice coverage - he was basically a rookie at exactly the right time for football cards.

Thanks John S., Bob's great about the back issues - I'll try to pick that one up and see how it compares to Jeff's 299 :)

Leon, nice to see you on this side of the board - I think it may have been your Heritage auction that introduced me to the term "type collector" - it stuck in my mind until I finally remembered to ask about it. Jeff mentioned 299, how many types did you have and/or were going after?