How Orderly is your Card Collecting? What is your Scatter Factor?

[jchcollins]

Interesting concept. No idea what my collection is truly worth retail, but if you do the scatter factor math on my most valuable card vs. what my collection is insured for, the figure is somewhere between 11 and 12. I will say that some of my most valuable cards got that way by appreciation and not directly through what I paid - and anymore, after the el nutso prices we were all witness to during the bubble - I'm left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about the truly pricey cards I'd still like to have. Though I'm mostly a star / HOF singles collector and not a true set collector at least by upbringing, I am working on two vintage sets right now. For singles, I kind of see the days of laying down true serious cash for one card as waning. I don't know what that number is for me, maybe ballpark it around $500 in the recent past? Anymore that's just too difficult for me to do, either in terms of saving for specific cards, or otherwise moving stuff in other areas of my collection to get the job done. I've done a ton of that in the past sure, but just saying I'm getting tired of it, if not totally unwilling to do it based on pure financial reasons. That, plus I'm also likely showing my age at this point in terms of condition preferences, coming full circle with that again: When I got back into the hobby seriously for the first time since my 20's about 6 years ago, I was a stickler of sorts. EX for 50's cards, EX-MT and up for 60's and later. Yeah, yeah. Recently I have found that I'm just as happy with VG cards for 60's and back so long as they retain eye appeal. For the '72 Topps set I am currently building, the aim is to end up with EX quality overall, but I can tell you I already have a lot of VG-EXish commons. The truth is they still look good, at least to the kid who still lives inside my mind's eye - and life is just getting to be too short. I'd rather make hay with quantity over technical quality in many cases in the name of accumulating more cards in the time I have left.

Anyhow, the point there being I would expect my "factor" number to probably go up, and not down - in the coming years of my collecting.

[bks14sr]

Scatter factor around 10, I think. I collect singles for certain players, and limited set collecting (48L, 52T and 54T). With the massive run up in prices last year, I pumped the brakes on set progress. I now have more fun chasing specific cards for player PCs, and sometimes creating hordes of said favorite cards. I still have some key cards that I’d love to get, but can’t justify current prices, 52T Mantle being the primary. It’s hard to go from shopping for a copy for years, being too picky at $xxxx, then suddenly that price gets multiplied. Kinda killed the chase for me. Now, with prices the way they are, my collecting is rather focused.

[Kutcher55]

Cool thread. My scatter factor is somewhere around 10-12 I’d imagine. I think a collection needs to be constantly evolving, living and breathing. For me that has meant going down rabbit holes from time to time and then selling and moving into something else. I built the 57 set and then sold it and started the 75 set and thought it was a waste and sold it for a loss. Then I started collecting a bunch of 71 slabs and have sold some of them off. The one constant has been my Yastrzemski PSA 7+ topps collection. I started a Ted Williams run and then sold everything except his RC. Most recently I have been expanding my raw collection and building a raw Aaron run. In general I have been trying to expand my raw collection and keep it fitting in one box, so this means I have started migrating the weakest cards to my junk bin and replacing them with better cards. I also just completed the 41 PB set. Soon I’ll be onto something else. As is always the case I try not to overpay for whatever I buy so when my interest changes I can sell without taking a loss.

Anyway right now my collection consists of (1) Red Sox cards including Yaz and Ted. (2) The Playball set. (3) The 71 slabs which I store in a cool black box that once housed a bottle of liquor. (4) Mostly 50s slabs of nice stuff but also a nice example of all the great pre war sets. (5) My raw stuff which is increasingly cool but no single card worth more than $200 or so. (6) my non baseball box which has all the Celtic greats and a bunch of football cards highlighted by a Namath rookie.

What a mess!