If you want to start a baseball card collection so you can trade cards with others and enjoy the game on a new level, there are many things you can do. First, you will need to start forming your own collection. Visit your local hobby shop and see what kinds of trading cards they have available. Many of these hobby shops have baseball cards as well as cards from other sports and even non-sport cards. The owners of the shops often have quite a bit of knowledge in the area of baseball cards so you can get some advice on how to build your collection while you look around. These dealers also sometimes have good selections of newer cards in addition to older cards.
You can also look at department stores, grocery stores, and other general retailers for some of the more popular, easy to find cards. These stores sell cards in packs that are marketed through their stores. They are often less expensive than those in card shops, but you will not likely get anything rare. When you build a collection, you will want plenty of baseball trading cards from which to choose so you might want to visit every outlet around in order to build your card numbers.
Once you have plenty of baseball trading cards, one of the most fun things to do is find other collectors and start trading. If you have friends that collect cards, finding people with whom to trade could be quite simple. Gather your group together and talk about the sport as you negotiate who gets what cards and for what traded prices. If you do not know other collectors, visit baseball card conventions and you will likely be able to get in with a group. There are even online groups that can help you exchange cards on a regular basis. Some of these groups have small membership fees, but if you want to become a serious trader, that fee will likely be worth the access you will gain to a large variety of traders.
When you buy a set of baseball cards, you can expect to find a variety of types of cards within that set. The base set are the basic cards that make up the set. The sets can range anywhere from 100-500 cards in number. Subsets are cards that are included within the base set that have special qualities. Parallel cards are cards that have the same design as those in the base set, but have something distinguishing on them.
Once you form a collection, you have a lot to learn about the cards in order to trade them efficiently and effectively so you never sell or trade cards for something lower than what they are really worth.