Bill - The more you know before you start buying, the better off you'll be.
Yes, it could be a good idea to buy some inexpensive cards to become more familiar with them and learn as much as you can via Net54 and other sources before purchasing higher end or more expensive cards in a particular set.
There's a lot of hobby knowledge on this board, through the links, search and members. Getting dubed on an item will happen to most collectors at least once. Thankfully for you, T206s and 52 Topps are two of the most popular and most collected sets as you know, so there's a massive amount of information about them.
There are plenty of T206 reprints out there and they're very easy to spot, so I don't think you'll have any issues with that. Sometimes the ones that are slightly trimmed can be difficult to spot, especially since TPGs have been known to still grade/slab them.
Feel free to reach out to me and others if you have T206 questions. I'm not the most knowledgeable t206 collector by far, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
