Hottest Player To Collect...And Why?
 

Interested in people's thoughts on "the player to collect (card wise) and why." Not just current value or up-side, but long term...could be a modern day player or dead ball era. Where is your money best spent and why?

Seems like you mean invest instead of collect.

Babe Ruth. Because he's Babe Ruth.

If you have more then 10 years continual dollar cost averaging deposits in S&P 500 index with reinvesting dividends. Double down or more I’d you can during recessions.

Cards should be fun, buy whatever makes you smile :-)

Never let emotions dictate your investment strategy. If certain cards bring any sorta of emotion to you don’t use them as investments.

Mike Trout errors and variations.

100% in agreement, however, the flavor of the day appears to be Ben Simmons (NBA) rpa’s.

Ty Cobb all the way for me. Babe is definitely the "icon" for the hobby, but Cobb is the only player unanimously voted into the hall of fame and his records make him fascinating to me. Also, the sport put him out there as "the player to see" 7 years before Ruth and subsequently a lot more collectibles were produced promoting ticket sales and player notoriety for the team.

Gleyber Torres!

No player has been unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers. Cobb received 98.2% of the vote. Griffey (Jr.) received 99.3% of the vote.

Cobb was not unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame. He did receive 222 out of 226 votes. I still agree with your assessment, but I'm biased. I think Steve's vote was pretty decent too, though I don't think Ruth's cards are as attractive (as a whole) as Cobb's. The period between 1916 and 1932 did not produce, in my opinion, cards as nice as the earlier part of the century. But yeah, Ruth is a great bet.

Prewar - Ruth ( I’ve met people that don’t have any idea who ty Cobb is.

Postwar- Willie mays ( IMO he is underpriced)

Modern - pick a hot rookie of the year candidate and hope you pick right then sell. Any modern player is a bad investment because of PEDS or injury.

I think the player you can count on staying strong is Ruth. Cobb cards have had a recent run, but he did not have the impact on the game that Ruth did, and even though he appeared in three World Series, he never won, and played poorly in the post season batting over 100 points below his regular season average. The only other player who I like going forward is Honus Wagner.

Ty Cobb :)
So many different fronts and backs to collect
e cards and D cards and T cards and....
IMO just more fun to collect

Ty Cobb. Without a doubt.

For Me:

Post War: Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle.

Modern: Trout, Kershaw and Harper.

Would LOVE to collect Ruth, but will never be in my affordability range!

In terms of future values
 

I’d say Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Mantle, Wagner, Aaron, Mays, Johnson, Mathewson, Ryan, Reggie, Rose, Joe Jax, Jackie, teddy ballgame, Joltin Joe

I definitely agree with the list with the additions of Cy Young and Roberto Clemente.

Babe Ruth will always be the king, but IMHO there will always be a great demand for these other blue chip players.

Babe Ruth will always be the King, but his early cards are all black and white and his later cards are color but ugly. You would have thought the King would have had better photo's to go with. I'd go with Cobb.

I agree they should be added Kevin
 

Thanks Kevin not sure how I missed those two. Lol.

give reggie Jackson love please ..

I'd say the guys that transcend the sport: Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.

My son and all his friends would say for current cards - PSA 10 graded Pokemon. You should have seen the kids standing around empty pegboard holders with sold out Pokemon packs at Christmas time. I asked, "what about baseball cards?" and they all kinda looked at me weird.

Eddie Gaedel - unlimited growth potential with minimal downside risk.

This... Jackie Robinson has a day named after him ever year... not sure any other players can lay claim to that... each year we will get reminded on 4/15 of not only what Jackie did to make our country better but also what he did on the diamond to make the Dodgers better.

What you're looking for is a player whose greatness isn't yet widely appreciated but will be in the coming decades. That describes essentially no one who has been mentioned or will be mentioned in this thread.

And who no one is presently collecting except you. Very narrow indeed.

In case anyone is keeping track, there are only 22,298 Mike Trout cards on eBay currently.

There are certainly players in the minor leagues that in my opinion are well worth getting a jump on. Here are a few:

Sixto Sanchez
Luis Medina
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Vlad Jr.
Juan Soto

A few years from now they will have a bloated amount of cards but right now they have only a handful of issues.

There are only 3 choices....

Pre-war - Ruth and Cobb
Post-war - Mantle

There's NO competition when combining the factors of popularity, value and status.

And the purpose of that data is what, exactly?

Although I doubt he will ever overtake the Babe and Tyrus among collectors and/or investors, cards of Lou Gehrig have been steadily increasing in value and popularity, particularly his Exhibit R/C. Add to the fact, there are not as many of Lou's cards out there compared to the other 2 icons, his clean lifestyle and tragic end and I see the trend continuing.

Collectible Players
 

Kevin...add one more to the list....Shoeless Joe Jackson. His coupled uncanny ability and “Black Sox” scandal will forever make him a National Cult Hero.

Joe T.

Grhrig Cards
 

Great point! The Iron Man is steadily rising each and every day, led by his 1925 Exhibit Rookie that is now a “monster” card in value.

Pretty funny, Joe. I was typing the below as you posted. Not surprising as we have always thought pretty identically about all things cards...

From a sheer collecting standpoint, I find Shoeless Joe both fun and interesting. He has some popular classics, and then more obscure issues. There are some that get pricey, and other less so. For those who find lots of options daunting, his relatively small amount of cards may be an attractive aspect. As someone who grew up in the 80s collecting rookie cards, I also like how there is one clear-cut RC of Joe Jackson; it is also a smaller sized card, again in keeping with what I knew and liked as a kid (never been a fan of oversized, though can get down with a mini— thanks to the 75s and those Topps League Leader cards I bought tons of as a kid).

Cannot go wrong with the likes of Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Williams, any ultra popular player. That said I do wish Ruth had some more colorful cards, the likes of his Goudeys and the US Caramel notwithstanding.

Post War, I enjoy collecting so many different players. Mantle chief among them. I like the myriad ways he can be collected— basic run, basic Topps run, and then all the unique issues outside Bowman and Topps.

Modern, I collect Judge. Great looking array of cards, most in retro designs. Yankee fan favorite. Plays the game right. Hits cartoonish bombs that people love to watch. Gregarious persona to boot.

Cobb such a dirtbag...i like Judge if hes the baby bomber version of Jeter. RCs still reasonable. Mantle is always good. I think Ryan is underrated.

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Nolan Ryan has such a great Topps run.

Jeter is probably the Mantle of the current generation. His SP card will probably be out of control down the line.

Even as a "dirtbag", as you so eloquently put it... Cobb will ALWAYS be more desirable than Judge, Jeter, Ryan and ANY OTHERS you can name with the lone exception of Ruth.

Jeter certainly not burnishing his reputation as an executive.

More desirable to whom? This is all completely subjective; there will be people who like Jeter and not Ryan. People who like Gehrig and not Cobb. Judge collectors who don't have any interest in Mantle. And on and on.

Sorry for the error, I read the Cobb HOF info in a book years ago and it stuck with me. I should have fact checked that, so thanks for the correction.

There are literally millions of cards out there for Judge and Jeter collectors though. They'll never reach the same level. For ANY career-contemporary Cobb card it's going to cost you, which is what sures up the value of his more expensive options.

Jeter who? DD is better than Jeter ever was.

I do get that the PreWar players have fewer career contemporary cards— and thus taken in the aggregate, those cards will be worth more money that the average career contemporary card of a modern player. That said, it does not mean the best card of a modern player is not as worthwhile to the collector or potentially to the investor as well, provided the latter is content to shoulder the accompanying risk.

From a strictly monetary standpoint, which is admittedly not my purview, one who bought a PSA 10 Jeter SP early on did fantastically well. And the "entry cost" of obtaining that Jeter back then was probably not even high enough to buy a nice Cobb or Ruth card. The salient point being there are all sorts of good options in terms of players and cards for both the collector and the investor. Multiple avenues for satisfaction that are neither competitive nor mutually exclusive.

Interesting case in point, for the monetarily minded: in the last year, if I paid the usual AH retail dollar to obtain a great Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth, or Shoeless Joe, I would be lucky to be able to break even on the sale of those cards today. In contrast, if I was so inclined, I could make a much greater profit on some Harpers and Judges I purchased in that very same window of time.

Another factor to consider on such a topic is how thin the air is as one progresses from 5 digits to 6 digits, and even upward. Such cards can be much harder to sell than one would think, at first blush. So there are many variables to consider, from which cards, at which prices, to investment horizon. Buying "for keeps," as it were, for a collection, really does a great job of simplifying the situation— and a great job of eliminating the headache that usually accompanies anything money-related.

1. Babe Ruth (no question; unfortunately most of his cards are ugly)
2. Cobb
3. Mantle
4. Wagner (the t206 alone keeps him in popular culture)
5. Lou Gehrig
6. Cy Young (his name is mentioned each year in the award of the best pitcher)
7. Joe Jackson (so long as field of dreams and other black Sox scandal-lore is popular)
8. Walter Johnson (unbeatable record)
9. Joe DiMaggio (unbeatable record and sung about by Simon and Garfunkel)
10. Eddie Plank - bc I just picked up his t206 card and wanted him on this list (I don’t really think he belongs)

IMO, Mantle is the only postwar card (not player-card) on this list. Other players may be more iconic - certainly Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Cal Ripken- but their cards are so plentiful that I just don’t think their cards make the list.

Then of course their are iconic cards of great players 1933 Goudey Lajoie, 48 Leaf Paige, T206 Magie (error), 1914 CJ Matty, 1888 Anson, etc... but that was not the topic.

“Joe Jax” was right in the middle of Glyn’s list.

This question has been discussed seemingly an infinite number of times. Who the hell knows is my answer. Everyone's a guru just like with stocks.

Magic the Gathering Alpha Set- Black Lotus
Just sayin...

"Interesting case in point, for the monetarily minded: in the last year, if I paid the usual AH retail dollar to obtain a great Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth, or Shoeless Joe, I would be lucky to be able to break even on the sale of those cards today. In contrast, if I was so inclined, I could make a much greater profit on some Harpers and Judges I purchased in that very same window of time."


Are you referring to a green Cobb or his rare postcards? Probably not. How about a 25 Exhibits Gehrig? Doubt it. A 14 cj joe Jackson? Naaaaa. Sounds to me like a straw man card you choose to compare to two particularly hot modern players. How many "hot" cards a year ago are worth far less today? New cards are like penny stocks: you can make a good profit if you sell at the perfect time. But like high risk stocks, if you hold on for too long, you can get burned. Even if the cards of the greats do stabilize a bit, they are safer than Cody Bellinger. I'm not sure that your hypothetical Cobb, jjax, and Gehrig cards would be hard to sell at a profit.

Sure in hindsight those three cards look great. But it's usually hindsight, how many people here were smart enough to stock up a year or two ago?

Has a red Cobb appreciated much? An E95? An M116? If you paid AH high retail could you really sell those at a profit for the most part?

Agreed Peter. I chose 3 cards that have gone up in value in order to illustrate the same flawed argument that Matty made by choosing two modern cards that have gone up in value. Both modern and vintage will have cards that stay the same or go up substantially in a year. You can't cherry-pick a couple of good examples from one side in order to strengthen your argument. Modern cards fluctuate far more. Sure, the e95 hasn't budged, but it hasn't tanked the way a bust prospect card would.