[mintacular]

I would think $10/card or less and you are going to get some pretty hammered/thrashed cards...If you are good with that go for it...

I would recommend before starting to really pinpoint which grade you find acceptable/meets your budget before you start buying. You will lose alot of $ if you decide later on to upgrade IMO. For pre-war stuff I have found that gd/vg cards work for me as they are low grade enough to avoid paying too much $ but not so low that I wince when looking at them...I would think that $20/card for most gd/vg t206s (w/common backs) is typical btw...

In terms of the challenge aspect, I don't think you have to worry about that with this set as there are so many variations/poses/tough backs/ HOFers, etc. Good luck and like I said really start to study cards in PSA/SGC holders and figure out which low grade condition (P-VGEX) you are happy with...Also, when start out a set it is good for you to buy a big chunk to get started so you can a better price and then from their cherry pick the singles you need.

As for graded cards, figure out if you are going for raw card set or a graded one. One thing to consider is maybe buying commons raw and the stars graded, that's what I would do...Also, in most cases you can probably save $ buying cards already graded than sending them in yourself.