Collecting A T206 Near Set - Group by Group

[toppcat]

Had a chance to sit and review my progress on collecting a T206 Near Set of 518 or 520 (not sure yet) and after about two-and-half years found I have exactly 80 cards, or about 15% of the set. I took a "group" approach and went after the tougher cards first so I expect more quantity going foward.

I concentrated on getting all the big HOF'ers and tougher variations value-wise from Speaker up to the Green Cobb first and finally knocked those off last year and now am after the next level of HOF'ers (Lajoie's, Tinker-Evers-Chance-Mcgraw, etc).

Also trying to get one of each back, or at least each brand although I'm not sure about anything harder than Lenox joining the collection any time soon. I have 20 different backs, the hardest of which is a Carolina Brights. I was surprised how many I had already.

I'm now concentrating on Southern Leaguers and discovered I already have ten in hand:

Cranston
Foster
Hart (Little Rock)
Miller (TL)
Persons
Revelle (Brown Hindu)
Shaughnessy
Smith, Carlos (TL)
Stark
Westlake

I'll need to upgrade some cards but have settled into what would be about a 2.5 to 3 range condition-wise, although they are all raw and I crack any slabs I buy. On Ebay I will only buy slabbed cards as I have had to return trimmed examples three or four times already. Here I have bought raw with no problems and in fact Westlake just arrived today from Ted. Z.

I'll buy HOF'er's, 150 only's (have 3-4 already) and SL'ers as the hobby budget allows this year and plan to try and buy a decent amount of commons in lots at the National in August since all those empty slots in the binder make me unhappy.

Collecting this set is a lot of fun and although the Monster has wanted me to quit a couple of times I have stuck with it. Anyone else got some tales of putting a set together?