Quantity or Quality: What do you prefer?

[jppopma]

I agree that there are many different definitions of quality. To some quality may mean the future HOF players, rookies, or hometown players. To others it may be a rare style, special patch, specific game, well used jersey, etc. I guess that's why we all have are own ideas on what to collect.

Personally, I love to go for quality...but often find my dutch blood winning out and buying quantity. Just too hard to pass up some of the cheap jerseys that are out there.

[legaleagle92481]

The question to you "investors" is do you as a whole make back more than you spent to obtain the item when taxes, buyer's premiums and shipping costs are factored in? I don't mean the occassional time when you get lucky and get an item really cheap or the value of an item skyrockets from when you bought it I mean overall.

[earlywynnfan]

I've been wanting to reply to this for some time, so let's bring this thread back to the top.

Regarding quality vs quantity, what about these 2 scenarios:

1) I collect GU bats, but am on a limited budget. I have Coach's bats used by Pee Wee Reese, George Sisler, Billy Herman, and Duke Snider. Do they compare to gamers from their careers? Absolutely not. But altogether I paid much less for all of them than it would cost me of any single one of their career gamers, which I absolutely can't afford. So I guess I'm taking "semi-quality" over nothing??

2) Another part of my collection is single-signed baseballs. I have hundreds and hundreds, from HOFers to guys none of you has ever heard of. Add my costs of these altogether and I could've bought one really nice Ruth ball, and maybe an off-grade Paige. I cannot imagine getting more pleasure from these two baseballs than I've gotten from the daily trip to the mailbox to get a Ken Heintzelman or Moe Burtschy. When my friends come over, I can't point to a ball and say "that's the greatest player who ever lived." But I can see their jaw drop when they see an entire wall filled with baseballs, all with their own stories.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

[Jags Fan Dan]

Wow, Ken, those are a couple of darn good scenarios where quantity does have a case against quality.

[gingi79]

I've been wanting to reply to this for some time, so let's bring this thread back to the top.

Regarding quality vs quantity, what about these 2 scenarios:

1) I collect GU bats, but am on a limited budget. I have Coach's bats used by Pee Wee Reese, George Sisler, Billy Herman, and Duke Snider. Do they compare to gamers from their careers? Absolutely not. But altogether I paid much less for all of them than it would cost me of any single one of their career gamers, which I absolutely can't afford. So I guess I'm taking "semi-quality" over nothing?? Ken, I think a HOF bat used to play t-ball or charity softball is still quality. I'd love a Chipper Durham Bulls jersey as everyone can agree, that would be a quality piece. But if he is a hitting instructor with the Braves or a 3rd base coach in 2013 lets say and his jersey comes up for sale, it's still a quality piece. Is it less "high quality" then a 96 Braves jersey? Sure, it's less valuable but the coaches jersey is still more of a quality shirt than say Bobby Joe Butthead's set 2 jersey from 2013.

2) Another part of my collection is single-signed baseballs. I have hundreds and hundreds, from HOFers to guys none of you has ever heard of. Add my costs of these altogether and I could've bought one really nice Ruth ball, and maybe an off-grade Paige. I cannot imagine getting more pleasure from these two baseballs than I've gotten from the daily trip to the mailbox to get a Ken Heintzelman or Moe Burtschy. When my friends come over, I can't point to a ball and say "that's the greatest player who ever lived." But I can see their jaw drop when they see an entire wall filled with baseballs, all with their own stories. This is a perfect rebuttal. Here you have massive quantity rather than one rare quality piece. Except your collection seems so massive that it's sheer size makes it a "quality collection" You also mentioned my favorite part of this hobby, going to the mailbox and seeing a package. It's better than a good beer buzz, just intoxicating. I agree Ken, that feeling say 150 times, beats one nice item every time.

Ken
earlywynnfan5@hotmail.com

Great post!

[Mark17]

For me it isn't either-or, it's a point on a scale that is closer to the quantity side.

There's no point in getting a bunch of stuff if it doesn't appeal to you or fit your collecting interests, just because it's cheap. There needs to be a certain quality level that makes the items desireable to you. If they meet that criteria, then I'd go with quantity.

For example, I collect 1960s Twins bats. As long as they were in decent shape (a couple batboy nails are okay), I'd rather have 10 common players I need, than one really nice Killebrew. I have a '64 Killebrew, with no use, and until I make my fortune that's good enough for me.

A very good question someone posed was, would you trade your collection for one spectacular item. Well, my holy grail would be a Ted Williams 1940s bat, impeccable provenance, Taube inspected and GU10. Suppose my collection was of roughly equal value, would I make the trade? No.

Reason is, if I did I would no longer be a collector. I'd have one bat to look at. And that would get pretty boring pretty fast...... So before long, I'd start picking up some commons here and there, getting back to where I had been in the first place.

[beaglegypsy003]

My primary collecting focus right now is football and any player from the University of Hawaii. Most people if they were to see my collection would think of it as quantity since the jerseys would be of common players. I did find my Holy Grail jersey when I purchased a Gary Allen (all time leading rusher at UH) Cowboys jersey. He only played three seasons in the NFL.

Previously I collected basketball. In that collection I have a 1893-94 cabinet photo of a Philadelphia team; Michael Jordan's 1992 NBA all-star game worn shoes; game worn shoes of Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Pippen, Karl Malone, among others. Game jerseys of Barkley, Rodman, St. Louis Hawks, ABA Kentucky Colonels, etc. I also have a basketball ticket stub and photo from the 1936 Olympics held in Nazi Germany. I also managed to get the signatures of four members of Naismith's first basketball team. So my basketball collection I think would be considered quality items. The funny thing is that I enjoy my football collection more because of seeing the players play in person in Hawaii and move on to professional careers.

One dealer told me a person once sold off his entire collection in order to purchase the ticket stub and program of Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game. After awhile, he sold it, not being satisfied with having just those items represent his collection.

[spartanservitto]

Quality.

I collect, that doesn't mean you can't invest. I love my game used bats. I also want to know when I look back, these are some of the best players of all time, or at least from my age when I was around baseball 15-23 years old.