With a budget of the A's Billy Beane has through his tenure with the A's, I can't aspire to be a truly serious baseball card, autograph or sports memorabilia collector.

I'm collecting the most current of players, hanging on the most low-end, outdated ideals and it is a rigamarole of perpetual, adolescent collecting mediocrity.

With that said, whatever I'll collect is for leisure. If I didn't like it, then I'd find something else to bury my head in. The point is that, I just don't want to get burned on the nickels and dimes I'd spend on my collectibles. I want to collect safely, I want to collect items that will maintain an established value. Things don't work that way, everything loses value, but I hope to look for items in my budget that will always be relatively popular.

Collecting certified autographs of selected active and retired stars over the last 20 years maybe something I want to do. Players I'm looking at may be borderline HOFers or guys who just starred for their respective teams over much of their careers. I'm not looking to water down my collection, but I'm looking to view the last 20 years more reflectively and truly add some 'affordable depth' to my collection. Everyone has certain HOFers who have signed so many things, but some non HOF guys have been relatively tougher to get otherwise for the people who hound in-person or put requests in the mail. There maybe only a minority of collectors who understand that point and I'm hoping to take advantage for my own personal collection.

My philosophy is Moneyball as far as collecting cards are concerned.

Staying away from retail product is difficult, but I like think that I'd rather pick up something I consider as 'neat,' for that $10-$15 I'd spend for packs anywhere.

I like rookie cards, but don't get involved in buying up rookie year parallels, I unless I pull one in a pack.

I do not gamble with any boxes.

I like stars, superstars, HOFers and other favorites.

Vintage may as well be out of sight, out of mind though I believe it is important.

I worry that I'm just a cursory collecting, but then I realize it is all for leisure. The caveat is that making sure that I need to gauge value accurately, so that I don't go bust. I don't want to spend too much on cards that have no real future value.