Set You Had Most Fun Putting Together
 

I'm finishing up a project to assemble a set from every year back to 1941. I've found that some sets were a blast to put together and some were a chore.

I'm curious what sets others enjoyed putting togther the most.

For me..

Most enjoyable
1967 Topps (the high numbers were a fun challenge)
1966 Topps (same as above)
1956 Topps (stars were affordable but numerous)
1943 M P & Co (finding any of them was exciting)


Most boring sets to finish
1965 Topps (I barely remember completing that set)
1964 Topps (dull looking set overall)
1964 Topps Giant (took forever)

Favorite Topps Set
 

I like 1957 and 1967 the best as sets , but my favorite is 1959, the first one I finished. My least favorite, that I put together card by card, was 1968

MY 1955, Milwaukee Braves Spic and Span die cut set was a lot of fun to put together. The feeling of accomplishment was sky high because I pieced that set together, one card at a time, on a very limited budget.

Biggest pain has been the Braves '55 Johnston cookies set, with the cards still attached in booklets. I have been stuck on 5 out of 6 panels for a year now. I need the series 1 panel, with Aaron, to complete it but haven't seen one individually for sale in years.

I haven't completed many sets, and only one older than 74.

The 48 Bowmans were fun, small set, and at the time possible on a tight budget if you didn't care at all about condition. (The Musial I had cost .50 with paper loss, and the Berra had been partly colorized nice yellow uniform!)
I sold it to fund some of a ski trip, and sort of wish I hadn't.

74 was fun to finally finish. I collected it when new, got close during the 80's, and finally bought the last one I needed around 1994 or so.

the 82s were pretty dull, since I just ordered them from a dealer when they came out.

I actually had fun putting together the first series of 2011 Topps.

Steve B

The sets that have been the most fun for me have actually been more recent sets . When Topps brought out the Heritage line back in 2001 I got back into cards again .Hunting the Sp's down made it a lot more challenging and I loved the vintage look . It also got me started once again wanting to pursue more real vintage cards as well. Started a 1952 & 1955 Bowman set which have been a little bit harder than expected. Brett

I'm still working to complete my first baseball set earlier than 1974 as I've been focusing on football for the past 5 years or so since getting back into the hobby. I did slowly complete the 1975 baseball set recently. About 1/3 of the set came from my youth and the rest I acquired through cards shows, ebay, other collectors, etc. It was a lot of fun and I've always liked the look of the '75 set.

I'm actively working on the following baseball sets. Mostly looking for raw cards to keep the cost down:

t206 (a looong term project)
1951 Bowman (need 183 cards)
1955 Topps (need 86 cards)
1958 Topps (need 131 cards)
1960 Topps (need 103 cards)

jeff

Mine....
 

1888 N28 set of 50....
1952 Topps (The High numbers were a nightmare)

We're in about the same boat. I've slowly taken on '48 Bowman, as far as the key cards go, a cheap, low-low-grade Musial is still avoiding me...

Had a lot of fun with '74. I didn't collect them when they came out though..And went for the master set. The Traded portion was the easiest to finish. The Washinton variations were pretty much the last ones I needed..So far, it's actually the ONLY set that was able to keep my focus long enough to finish(aside from the sets I bought)..

Anything 80 or newer, I bought complete. Except '82 and '83. I found cheap sets(-the Ripken and -the Boggs, Sandberg, Gwynn) since I already had doubles of those anyway...

On the Pre-war side. The '41 double plays have a very similar appeal to me as the '48 Bowman. Small set, a few big name rookies, affordable, and often come up in low-grade(since you often find them separated)..A separated Williams/Cronin card cost me a total of $5..

I'll also jump on the bandwagon with darkhorse, the MP & Co's are fun...Boring cards, but a fun set...I've never made an attempt to complete, but get excited everytime I find one cheap..

Topps set
 

Anyone ever attempted to assemble the Topps Zest Soap set......:)

73 topps for me.

My first year collecting as a kid was 72. In early 90's I sold most of my 70's baseball, but kept the 72's...when I got back into collecting in 09 I finished up the 72 set but only had a few holes.

73 I built from scratch buying lots on ebay..........Love the photography in that set and it brought back a lot of memories. Loved sorting the lots as they came in a choosing the best card to keep. It was my goal to spend no more than the average cost I was seeing for complete sets. Ultimately met that goal but it was nerve racking (read: fun) once I had completed the set and began trying to sell the doubles, triples, quadruples, quintuples to eventually get back down to my $ goal for net cost on a complete set.

Took me about 4 months to complete the set then another couple of months to sell the extras.

Also did the 52 bowmans in a similar manner - It was fun too, but overall the 73 was the best since I had seen so many of the cards as a kid!

The attached Clemente is the first card I bought :

Pre-War: 1921 Exhibits, fun bc it was attainable over a reasonable amount of time and it is loaded with Hall of Famers

Post War: 1967 Topps, this one is special bc it was the first year I really collected in earnest as a child, the set contains some of those cards from my childhood and 1967 is a magical year for me bc my favorite team the Cardinals won the World Series

The following are my top choices:

1978 Topps - This was the first set that I put together with the help of my grandmother.

T205 - 61 away from completing which I started putting together in 2007. I have a feeling that I will always be 1 card short of the master set, which I don't mind.

1956 Topps - about 120 short, one of my favorite sets.

1952 Topps - 405 short. This will be my next set that I will attempt to tackle after I complete the T205s.

r/
Frank

Had fun with:
*The '55 Topps for the beauty of the cards and for being in the middle of perhaps the most idealic decade for the sport and the hobby.
*The 1972 Topps that so epitomized their times with the radical design and by bringing that particular era to life like never before with all those action photos.
*I'll get some flack for this, but all the sets that followed 1973 for getting rid of the series issues and thereby eliminating the hard to get and expensive, hi-number cards. (One exception, read below.)

Least favorite to put together:
The '75 Topps set. I found it extremely overrated and just plain boring. They let the genie out of the bag in '71, when they first included action photos and took a step back in '75 when they treated them like a novelty that had run it's course.

57 & 71
 

57/71 BB, always room to upgrade, some tough high #'s/centering and black borders. Lots of expensive stars so they are not too easy and you can't just buy the whole set at one time, at least not me...

I like almost all of them! 72 wins
 

I am working on a run from 1953 to 1980 Topps with a few of the Bowmans that I haven't got serious about.
I will probably do the 1952 low numbers too, I have a good start.

A poster above mentioned the high numbered series from Topps...I gotta tell you that mostly that's just irritating to me to have to pay for high numbered, otherwise common players. The 1961 are tough for example...:(
I just want to get them and then close the binder. Damn high numbers!

But even though the 72 set has a TON of cards and some fairly scarce hi's...to answer the original question, it was my favorite to complete. That baseball set brought back the ol' memories of that summer where we'd buy cards almost every day...10 cents a pack. And even as a ten year old I remember noticing the different series... Somedays you'd open your pack and see ALL new cards and players, and what a blast that was for several weeks until you started seeing another whole new group!!
Luckily, with card collecting buddies like the OBC gang, I filled in the holes from that 787 card set a few years ago , complimenting my originals from that nostalgic summer. I might even try it again this summer...40 years later:D

Had Fun With:
1975 Topps, I remember putting my birth year set together in the late 80's and going from booth to booth at the Old Willow Grove Shows to finish out the set.
1959 Topps, I started this set my senior year of highschool in 93 and didn't finish it until well after college due to money constraints, but a great set with moderately difficult high numbers.
Least Fun With;
1967, 1966, 1961 Topps. All 3 have brutal high numbers especially in nm or better condition. I love cards but having to pay4-5 times book value for a nm common that you have not seen in that condition for almost 2 years is painful just to finally finish off the set.

I am one of the few who just loves the hunt of set collecting!!

Hi Scott - FYI, lot #535 in the current Legendary Auction has all 6 of the 1955 Johnston Cookies panels.
Val

1954 Topps
1955 Topps
1963 Fleer

Thanks for the heads up! Hopefully, the price stays low enough that I would be able to keep panel 1 and resell the other 5 I already have w/o losing a lot of money. People pay a huge premium on buying all of them at once. A guy on Ebay just sold the 5 panels I have, individually, and only made about 250 bucks. Of course, he didn't have panel 1 for sale. I bet Legendary will get over 800 for that lot.

My favorite set to put together was the 59 set. i just love the design with the circle etc.

Least favorite for me was the 69 set. Not that difficult just that the cards are not that attarctive to me

Getting there is all of the fun
 

Scott: I did the same a few years ago. Had been trying to complete a decent set of 1951 ML All Stars for a couple of decades, but could not find a Kiner or Dropo with intact backs. When Legendary put up a five-card lot with backs, I had to have it, even though overpaid somewhat at 2.5 grand. Will probably take a loss unloading the extras, but worth it to me just because I wanted those two cards for so long.

i hope no one gets angry but i must ask this question..i see so many people say i did not like putting 19** set together because it was an ugly set, unattractive to me and so forth....

to me i collect a set i like visually, i would never collect a set i did not like (i barely have enough money for the sets i do like lol)

so i bet you can see my question coming, why build a set you do not like?

I believe some collector's like to have a complete run of Topps, Bowman, etc sets

ah that makes sense to me lol..

As a kid [in the 80's], I remember seeing pictures of Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn 1951 Red Backs and thinking how cool it'd be to own one. When I got back into collecting in the early 2000's, I got a Warren Spahn from Gar Miller, and proceeded to put together a raw g-vg set [including both variations]. The last card I needed was Duke Snider -- and Gar gave it to me as a gift for graduating university.

Compared to nearly every other set listed in this thread, what I did was easy, but it wasn't any less fun. Just thinking back to it has me thinking about building the set again!


Richard.

By far for me was 57 and 71 simply because I started out with the 57 being the first standard size cards and for there beautiful photos and the 71's for being the year that I most vividly remember collecting when I was a kid. I can still remember seeing all those rack packs in the supermarket like it was yesterday..........

The 51 Red Backs are a fun set. Blue backs too. And unopened packs are doable as well. I think the Topps 51 sets are in general under appreciated because of the stronger interest in the 52s and the impression some have that it was the first Topps baseball set.

I have done the Red Backs, Blue Backs, Connie Mack All Stars, Current All Stars ( only the 8 issued cards) and both versions of the Team cards. It has been awhile but the last 3 were pretty tough.

The Topps 1991 set was hailed as the 40th and the 2011 as the 60th, but I count my first Topps set as the baseball subset of the 1948 Topps Magic Photos

I don't know if you would generalize mine as a "set" per se, but I am trying to accumulate a "Master Collection" of HOF autographed rookie cards, players only. Obviously some don't exist, Negro Leaguers, 1887 A & G's, Old Judge, etc., but for the ones that do exist, I'm trying to grab, then upgrade to better conditions. I started in about 2007, mainly working on deceased HOF'ers and older HOF'ers who's health is turning for the worse.

The first set I almost completed from buying packs and trading was 1976. I kept it sorted by teams and marked the backs of the team checklists to see how close I was to completion. When I got a team completed I wrapped them in a rubber band and put them in one of these......

If I ever re-assemble a Red Back set, I'll almost certainly also tackle the Blue Back set at the same time. The original goal oh-so-many years ago was to do both anyway. I doubt I'd bother with the all-star and team cards though. My budget and patience can probably only handle the red & blue backs. And even then, only if they remain under valued as you noted.


Regards,

Richard.

Gar Miller - great hobby dealer and all-around good guy
 

Interesting you mentioned the effect the Redbacks had on you in the 1980's. They were the set that I recalled most distinctly from my childhood - something about the format: oddly ugly b/w photos of MLB stars on playing cards with round corners in two-card panels, yikes. Plus, the extra All-Star card in the wrapper with a deliciously rancid caramel candybar. What kid could ever forget that. However, no Mantle or Mays rookie cards in the set, so consigned to hobby obscurity. I'm still searching attics for the impossible elusive big-three unissued current all-stars.

I'm like Tonyo...1973 was the first set I collected seriously as a kid...and over the years I upgraded it. I remember buying the 4th series complete from Larry Fristch since I couldn't for some reason find the 4th run in my area. The High Numbers were easier!

I went back and completed the 1972 set much later...but also enjoyed collecting that one.

1974 brings back the fondest of memories...I completed almost the entire set card by card by buying packs and then trading with my friends during that hot summer as a kid! :) Eventually went for the master set and finally obtained the last card i needed 1974 Washington NL Dave Roberts at the old Bob Lee show in SF in the late 80's...the guy I bought it from was just as excited as I was when I told him that was the last one I needed. :D

Ricky Y

1958 Topps All-Star Sub Set
 

I am not a set builder for baseball though I am for football and have a couple sets from the 1960's. That being said, I am toying with the idea of collecting the 1964 and more importantly the 1965 Topps Baseball sets as those are my favorite two years from the 1960's. It will take a while but having fun with both.

As a high school student back in the 1980's I put together the '58 Topps All - Star sub set. Some twenty plus years later they are still my favorite group of cards in my small but growing collection.

I am sure several remember the Hart to Hart episode that featured a young boy who inherited a great collection of vintage baseball cards from his deceased father. The cards were stolen and eventually Jonathan Hart (Robert Wagner) wins them back by flipping.

One of the cards they showed was Stan Musial's first Topps card, the '58 All - Star and I instantly fell in love with that sub set. The last two cards I picked up for that were the Mantle and Ted Williams and I believe I paid $10 for each back in the 80's.

Wow, talk about memories! Yes, I saw that Hart to Hart episode with the baseball cards. I hadn't thought of it for MANY years until I saw your post just now. I love having an old memory stirred up like that! Thanks for the proverbial trip down memory lane! :D

I'm not sure how much fun it was but I finished a Salutations Exhibit set last year. Took me several years to do it. At one point I had a near set of 1975 Topps which I definitely had fun doing--I was 10 and got to chew a lot of pink gum!

You are welcome.

I watched the episode again on You Tube a few months back.

As I said in my first post, those instantly became my favorite cards and twenty five years later they still are!