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Old 12-30-2011, 08:23 PM
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tbob tbob is offline
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Having put together the 1909, 1910 set of 150, 1910 set of 175 and 1911s, card by card, I think I may be able to offer a little help here.
Asoriano is correct about the difficulty in obtaining a 1910 Frank Miller. It is even more difficult to try and complete the 1911 Zeenut set because of the same Frank Miller. Luckily I secured a nice Obak Miller a while ago and was able to pay through the nose to grab a Zeenut Miller in a private sale. Bottom line- look through auction house auctions to try and find a Frank Miller, buy the lot and sell off the others you don't need.
I have also found that buying groups of 5-10 Obaks at a time, is a good financial move. Be sure and check out those PSA 3s and 4s and SGC 40s and 50s because you find some creaseless, well-centered and undergraded cards, particularly from a while back when SGC was dropping the grades on Obaks with a factory blue stamp (numbers) on the back from say a 70 to a 30 or 40. Now SGC doesn't decrease the grades for this so there are some beautiful Obaks in older slabs which are great buys.
I was able to put the 1910 sets together by buying the scarcer cards in decent condition and then constantly upgrading and selling the lesser condition ones. I am not sure how this will work in today's ebay economy but it was effective. Watch out for Jewish players who carry a premium and those minor leaguers like Peckinpaugh who made a splash in MLB.
I highly recommend the Obak sets, I think they are beautiful cards and got me interested in PCL and NWL players and teams, which lead to collecting sets like D311 Pacific Coast Biscuit (also beautiful) and ultimately the early Zeenut sets.
There is no premium for any stamps on the back although Buck Barker (hobby pioneer) inscribed the back of some 1910s with tiny but copious stats, and there may be some collectors who would offer a premium for these.
Good luck and happy collecting!

Last edited by tbob; 12-30-2011 at 08:26 PM.
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