how often do you change your collecting focus?

[jp1216]

I've done all that many times. But once the monster bit me - I narrowed my focus.... Sure, I have other interests, but the monster doesn't allow for many....

[benderbroeth]

i have to say the only set i have not waverd on is the t205 set...i really love that set the best.

[HRBAKER]

never really, my collecting is not very focused; some sets, HOF types, Philly A's

I just go through spells where I concentrate more on some areas than others but I just set the others off to the side to be picked up later

[Robextend]

My collection is very focused, but I have quite a few projects going so it always keeps me busy. However, when I first started out I must have changed my mind what seemed like a hundred times.

[benderbroeth]

i think my biggest problem is my budget..i want everything made before 1959..but i cannot afford it...

[bbcard1]

I am in the midst of trying to focus. I am working on the monster (about half way through, largely low grade), a 1941 Double Play set (2 cards to go) and a 1961 Topps set (just getting started). I have always tried to pick up a different card of a hall of famer every chance I got, but have backed off that...too expensive for the negro leaguers and the 19th century guys. I futz around with foreign cards, but mainly just when I trip across them. I always try to find at least one card of even the most obscure player from Marshall University. I have had a major shift in my collecting over the last couple of years. At one point, I just tried to collect pretty much everything. We had a bouncing 79 year old move in with us for a few years and the space just wasn't there. At one point i got into serial numbered cards, first or last serial number which I still think is kind of neat...but I no longer obsess on them. Crazy as it sounds, I probably amassed 2000 of such cards. Now I am down to the above mentioned obsession. I am considering narrowing my focus to cards that were made in years ending with "1" (I was born in 1961) and working with the rest. Having to liquidate my friend's collection has made me understand that someday it will happen to mine.

[cdn_collector]

Since my return to collecting around 2002, it's changed regularly. Maybe 7-8 times -- usually as a function of space and money. I try to walk a fine line between 'collecting' and 'accumulating'. If I focus on something too easy [cheap and readily available] I accumulate more than I can reasonably store or look through regularly, but if I focus on something too difficult [not as cheap, nor as readily available], then in order to collect it, I have to spend more money than I am comfortable admitting to anyone is represented by cardboard.

Within reason, this has not stopped me from focusing on any particular thing, but without fail, every collection hits the space or money threshold eventually.

It also doesn't help that I am on a limited [decreasing?] budget, and am a fan of all eras of baseball.

Regards,

Richard.