[Marinocollector]

I collect Dan Marino.... my collection has grown more than I ever could have imagined, this is the method I took...

I had 929 Marino cards in 2004. I decided I'd go ahead and get to 1000. Well, being in college, I picked up and traded for the cheaper cards. After picking up about 110 base cards, I realized I only needed 60 other base cards to have them all. In my hunting and trading for Marino base cards, I was picking up inserts I liked as well. All of a sudden, I have every base card and needed only 130 inserts. I then started grabbing the inserts I needed while picking up the occasional GU'd and Auto's. As my income grew, my collection could grow. Its been a lot of fun. Good luck!!! Even if you decide to just get the base cards, it would be a fund challenging collection with those 4 guys. Good luck!!!!

[ZSDOne]

what i would recommend as the most cost effective way is buying individual cards and focusing on collecting a team - I have gotten a lot of really cool Eagles cards for the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s for a real low price. Newer insert cards also tend to be pretty cheap.

If you like autograph cards, you can find some cheaper - for $20 a month, you can probably get 3-4 lower end autographs or one pretty decent card. Go to the nearest card shop or card show and buy the coolest card you can find for $20 and chances are you will be very happy. Even happier if you buy the two coolest $10 cards.

[jeremy7269]

Why not pick a set that you like and collect the Bills from that set?

There is a Cowboys collector that does that with Contenders each year.

[kstjst48]

what that means is, supposedly topps will be losing their NFL license, and the only game in town with a license to produce NFL cards (with NFL logos) is panini...

just another note...for my tastes, although Panini has some nice "high end" product (i.e. national treasures, flawless, etc), the rest of their sets pretty much look the same from year to year...and although topps is not upper deck in terms of style, I think with topps losing their license it may also bring the hobby down.

maybe you should start off with a bigger budget, but then as you obtain more items, you can then use excess for trades or sell them to allow you to decrease your budget...

Gone by next year? The entire company or just one of the listed sub sets?

I

[phinzphan1372]

I would pick a new team

[duch2izback]

I think collecting either player would be a great idea. Perhaps start with lots. They tend to be cheap, if you want to start with base

[no1dolphan]

Collecting is easy. I follow basic rules:
1) Only collect what you love. If you buy it and can then immediately sell it you bought the wrong thing.
2) Try to collect HOF'ers. Obviously this can be difficult if your favorite guy is not in there, but you mentioned Jim Kelly so that's a start.
I love the master set idea (obviously) because it's a look back in history for one player as well as the card industry itself. I know I'm a cranky, "you kids stay off my lawn!" kind of guy, but new cards are depressing. There's seemingly no creativity anymore. I look back at the mid to late 90's and it was the glory years of cards for sure. Pacific never got their due because they had some creative and beautiful designs back then.

[waynetalger]

In football I collect Cowboys any and all and HOF rookies. In baseball I am a vintage collector and a player collector and my players get added every year for some new good guys come out. It does seem hard to follow a budget but if that is what must be done my suggestion is to buy a box keep your team and players and trade the rest. That is what I do, except I have not bought a football box since 2010 and all my new cowboys come from trades.

[buffalobrandon]

I would pick a new team

Hey, maybe I'll start on my Charles Clay PC now!

This budget is killer. Two months in ( month and a half actually cause I started mid February) and I am at about $25 per month average. But my wife would kill me if I go over that right now.

I've mostly been trying to hit up cheap lots on Ebay to acquire base cards. Most recent lot I picked up was 25 Kelly and 25 Thomas cards for about 14 cents per card. Of the 50 total cards I think about 8 I already have in my collection.

I also picked up a pack of 2014 Topps Prime from my LCS a few weeks back because it is just too much fun not to open wax every now and again. But I am glad I only bought one pack because if I had bought two packs at $9 a piece and came out with what I did, it would have hurt bad.

I noticed something when I was looking through my Bills collection. I like a lot of the Eric Moulds cards I have. I have some late 90's/early 2000's Upper Deck SPX and Flair Showcase and those are some really nice looking cards. If I were to try to build a set at some point I think those would be good choices.

Also, shout out to pgrinpdt who hooked me up with some pretty sweet cards!