Baseball-Card Collecting: Pick Players or a Theme

Now that you've fine tuned your thinking about why you're collecting and what the focus of your collecting is, it's time to ask yourself "What am I going to collect?" Here is where you decide the "who," or what the true focus of your collection is going to be. I want to throw a thought out on the table since I have discussed the long- and short-term investing concept. You can do both --- I was not making it a hard-and-fast rule to pick one or the other. I was pointing out the differences when it comes to defining each category.

The first thing you want to think about is how many players you're going to invest in for either reason. I have always recommended between 6 and 12, with 12 being the extreme. The fewer you collect, the less the intensity of tracking their progress. I've actually gone to the extreme and am currently focusing on 12 different players. But, there are 3 that I've placed on highest priority status, 6 that I classify as medium priority, and 3 that I've put as possible short term investments with a lower priority.

Secondly, once you decide on which players to collect, stick with the major manufacturers. The following list is the manufacturers I always recommend:

Topp's

Upper Deck

Fleer

Donruss/Leaf

Bowman