1st Edition; The Pack Gambler Followers: "What are you collecting?"

As you know, The Pack Gambler is all about providing insight and opinion on sports cards within our community. What we also strive for is to have The Pack Gambler Followers on Twitter and Facebook involved into our blogs, reviews and news. So the idea of writing a blog/article on our Followers was an easy idea and would also provide other collectors some thoughts about what others within the community are collecting or investing in. Hopefully this will be our 1st of many more to come along.

We recently asked our followers within the Facebook community to tell us what they are currently collecting. The question was at a time where the World Series was in full swing, NFL just finished Week 7, NBA Pre-season was under way and the NHL continued to stay in a lockout. Lots of things happening within the sporting world which was the perfect time to ask about what you were collecting.

With the MLB season almost ending I knew a lot of collectors would be still focusing on their projects they started this year within some of the baseball products.

Like Tracy L."Trying to complete my 2012 Triple Play set but most people don't have any cards to trade from it. Difficult set to complete." 

Other collectors like Jonathan H. and Justin W. whom try to narrow their collecting to baseball have on-going projects that carry over each year:

"I'm currently running down the Boston Red Sox Unity Jersey cards from 2012 Topps Triple Thread. Finding them on eBay is easy, winning them on the cheap is not. Outside of that it's Red Sox cards in general. Trying to collect all of them is a chore but it's a fun chore, I guess you'd call it a hobby." said Justin W.
 
"I collect mostly baseball, all Pirates, especially HOF and prospects. This year was good to me with prospect and RC autos. Got 2 Starling Marte RC Auto Relics, 2 Geritt Cole autos, and a Jameson Taillon auto. Also hit a nice Andrew McCutchen redemption." says Jonathan H.
As for myself in the Baseball collecting, I too am continuing with my on-going search for 2011 Topps Jose Bautista Parallel Rainbow of Chrome and Regular Topps. In addition to the Bautista 2011's I'm always in search for BlueJay Rookies along with Lawrie, Arencibia, Romero and Drabek cards.  

With the NHL still in full lockout mode with no light at the end of the very dark tunnel, fans are still seeing new Releases out on the market. Upper Deck and Panini both have continued with their plan for 2012-2013 products and haven't disappointed. This is one of the reasons for Hockey collectors to try and find new avenues to collect within the sport. Rookie cards being pulled in packs right now still hold some value, but nothing like they would if the season was in full swing.

Collectors like Matthew S. are just an example of how some NHL collectors are trying new things. "I've always leaned towards collecting rookies but with the lock-out I've become more interested in the classic players. Right now it seems that there are quite a few Brett Hull auto and memorabilia cards out there, unlike previous years. Hull has always been one of my favorite players so I've been trying to track down a few of his cards in the secondary market."

I'm not a collector of Hockey any longer but if I still was this is a very good way of tailoring your collection during a sad time of a lock-out. Most of the products coming out this year are including a lot of retired players in the product and like Matthew stated above, your going to be seeing a lot of older players cards showing up in new and previous years products like you never seen before. 

On the flip side though is the unfortunate part of any lockout could be the loss of collectors in the industry. Even for a year or a bit during a lock-out can effect the hobby in many ways. For instance Andrew M. has turned his collecting habits into Baseball; "I mainly collect hockey but this year because the NHL season is looking more and more like it is going to be lost I have returned to collecting baseball. There are some very cool products and cards out there that have been released so have been chasing the Blue Jays cards from several of the sets as they are released." he states. 
This could also continue to be a trend in the industry and could turn collectors even away for good depending on what happens with the lock-out and the future products coming out. 
  
As most of us we do dabble into other sports and mix and match with cities or certain players. Jamie B. has been focused on Football and Basketball; "Collecting football and basketball. I have great luck with Panini football grabbing a jersey RGIII and his auto/jersey but no luck getting any hit with Andrew Luck. Basketball I collect Bulls!" 
While Matthew G. is into Baseball and Football; "Been trying to chase down a Bryce Harper and Trout rookies. I also collect Yankees and have been putting a binder of cards together. And for football, anything especially NY Giants I collect. Been trying to put together a Giants collection and sorting them by player in binders.

Then you have some collectors that take on everything like Brad J. who is not only working on his collection, but a future project for his little one to continue; "I am doing a lot of any kind of card collecting. NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL I'm doing all of them but mostly football and baseball I wouldn't mind start more on the NHL ones so when I get older my son can have all my cards and collect mine."

With collecting cards it never gets old, and if you happen to stray away for a bit and come back into the hobby (like I have) you can get right back into the fold without missing a heart beat. Laurie G. is currently starting this up again "Football then baseball, basketball I don' t have much of but would like to add to. Getting back into collecting so I'm like a little kid all over again happy with whatever I get my hands on!" she states.

Hearing back from our Followers you can see that there are always going to be various ways of collecting during certain times of the year. The NHL Lockout has proved to somewhat hinder the hockey collecting for some but has given others another outlook to run with. Baseball and Football seem to continue to be the strength of the hobby, with collectors looking for certain players, teams and products. 
Current day the MLB season completed with the Giants sweeping the series, the NHL lockout still continuing, the NFL moving into Weeks 8-9 and the NBA about to start the Regular Season. There are collections starting, ending or continuing in some fashion with the change in the sports world all the time.