April’s Baseball Card Collection
April is a 12-year old girl who has been collecting baseball cards for over 3 years now. Her collection has grown substantially over that time and she now proudly owns 905 different baseball cards spanning many decades of Major League Baseball history. Baseball card collecting has become a passion project and favorite hobby for April. She loves learning about the players, teams, statistics and more that are represented in her sizable collection.
April first became interested in baseball cards after finding some of her father’s old cards from the 1980s in the attic. She asked if she could look through them and was fascinated by seeing photos of players she recognized like Mike Schmidt and Nolan Ryan. From there, her father helped her start her own collection by giving her some common cards to get started. She also received baseball cards as gifts from relatives on her birthday and holidays. Once April’s collection started growing, she was hooked and wanted to expand it as much as possible.
To build her collection, April spends a portion of her allowance each week purchasing packs of new baseball cards at the local card shop or convenience store. She also enjoys going to card shows in the area a few times a year where she can buy individual cards from vendors to target players she wants. April keeps track of which cards she needs in a baseball card binder and checklist. When she gets duplicates in packs, she trades them with friends who also collect or sells them to the local shop for store credit to put towards new cards.
The bulk of April’s 905 card collection consists of modern players from the 1990s through today. She has stars like Ken Griffey Jr., Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout. She has made efforts to collect some older vintage cards too to represent different eras. Some of her prize possessions include a 1975 Nolan Ryan rookie card, a 1968 Roberto Clemente, a 1963 Sandy Koufax and a 1956 Mickey Mantle. April loves looking through the older cards and noticing how basic and low-tech the designs were compared to today’s high-gloss photo cards.
In addition to individual player cards, April’s collection contains many team sets from various years. She takes pride in having complete or near-complete sets from recent seasons like 2020 Topps, 2021 Bowman and 2022 Donruss. Filling out team sets is a fun challenge and source of achievement for her. April also collects specialty subsets within main sets like Topps Opening Day, Topps Update and Topps Heritage. Her collection represents 26 of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises with a heavy focus on the San Francisco Giants since that is her favorite team.
Organization is crucial with a collection of 905 cards. April stores all of her cards in several large nine-pocket pages baseball card binders sorted alphabetically by player last name. Rarer and valuable vintage cards are kept safely in protective plastic sleeves. She keeps digital checklists on her iPad to track which cards she needs and which players she has multiples of to trade. April also takes the time each month to log all new additions to her collection into a spreadsheet catalog. This level of organization allows her easy access to find any card she wants.
In addition to the fun of collecting, April enjoys learning about baseball history from the players featured on her cards. She reads player bios on the backs and researches online to learn more. Some of her favorite players to research have included Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and more. Baseball card collecting has become an educational hobby for April, fueling her passion for America’s pastime. As her collection grows, she hopes to one day have cards representing every decade of MLB from the 1900s onward. April’s 905 baseball cards and counting represent a valuable collection that is one of her most prized possessions.
