It just occurred to me the other day that I wonder how many of you (if any) have thought about collecting thematically. It's fairly common in stamp collecting with people collecting only those stamps that depict birds, butterflies, ships & aircraft etc. For my two cents I couldn't bear to bring myself to mix up sets putting a collection together of cards that just depicted (say) cars or wombats.
Anyone??

I do not think my brain would ever allow for this; unless, of course, I had a rather inexpensive collection of spare cards that I could put together to make a different set of some type. But never to an original set.

I wouldn't call it collecting thematically, but my main focus is collecting certified autograph cards. I will collect the signatures of people that I like, usually based on some particular movie or TV roles, and I may not get any other cards in that set. Since these are certified autograph cards it eliminates most reasonable doubts of authentication, but my collection is derived from a hodge podge of products with no real intention of completing anything. Maybe Game of Thrones, but I'm a long way off for that.

That is not the same thing as those people who want to collect for example every porceline turtle or frog that they see, which is what you are talking about, only in depicted card images. I would think that would be both tiring and pointless as an exercise. You could just as well cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines and it would cost you less time and money than trying to run down suitable cards.

Yeah, totally agree with both of you, but what's curious is that it works with stamp collecting.

Well I have a few friends who travel both foreign and domestic and they have a habit of coming back with those pressed out and stamped coins that apparently are done in machines at tourist places.

I don't get it as a souvenir either, but it seems to make them happy.

I think this is how my collecting has evolved. I haven't collected sets since Artbox stopped producing Harry Potter cards. I have a binder with rock star autos from many different sets, a Disney binder with Reel Piece of History filmcards, trading cards from the Disney parks, even a Patrick Warburton auto (he's part of the Soarin' ride), and more. I'm having fun picking and choosing which cards to chase, usually at a cost much less than if I were buying sealed boxes.

I’ve been collecting since the first Marvel Universe set by Impel came out in 1990. Eventually switched to mainly collecting promos, but I do have a few thematic collections.

1. title cards/#1 and checklists (as well as parallel version) to save on binder space. The title card gives you a feel for the set and the checklist basically lets you know what the set contains.
2. specific character base cards (a) Spider-man, Venom, Carnage and (b) Human Torch, Captain America, and Namor.
3. cards by specific artist - Mike Mignola, Dave Devries, Bill Sienkiewicz.
4. boxloader cards - usually you would have to purchase three or more boxes of a product and NOT get any duplicates to complete a set.
5. comicbook inserted cards - mainly from the 90's.

It would save me a lot more money to be more focused! However, I tend to by in these areas.
1. Television shows or movies I have watched or are currently watching.
2. Marvel comic movies and the Women of Marvel sets.
3. Star Trek autograph cards (but since I am on a budget (I tend to buy for under 5.00)
4. Back in 2007 I sold a large portion of my Inkworks autosgraph collection off. Today, I am buying them back at a fraction of what I made a profit off of! (Sweet!)

I can't do it. I'm a die-hard completist, which is frustrating beyond all belief.

I don't collect thematically. But selling my duplicates I found a lot of buyers and collectors moving in that way.