scarce set building

[x2drich2000]

Assuming you're on a limited budget and a group of cards from a difficult set you were building came up for sale, would you look to pick up 1-2 HOFers or several commons and why? What other factors would influence your decision?

DJ

[conor912]

The scarcer the card, the bigger the reason to get it when it becomes available, regardless of common/hofer.

[Leon]

I would try to get the most difficult cards first.....and if they are all the same scarcity and there are numerous, I would probably go for the commons in order to get more out of the way. That is if I was a set collector. For me personally, I would almost always go for the best HOF'er, as I don't collect sets (though I have several of a few sets).

[Bicem]

HOFer's.

[KCRfan1]

I'm on a limited budget, and as a result, I am not building a scarce set. Scarce = big dollars for cards which I do not the funds to spend. Hence the limited budget. But that is my world, limited budgets for others may include a couple of zero's at the end of their first one or two numbers.

[ullmandds]

I would probably go after the commons...especially if some are tougher than others... Because I would think that the Hall of Famer's would come up for sale more often.

[rainier2004]

Originally Posted by Bicem

HOFer's.

I'm with you on this one...

[Kenny Cole]

The scarcest cards would be my priority, but all things being equal I would get the HOFers first. Demand for them is generally greater and I would think they are the ones whose prices are likely go up and cause them to become more cost-prohibitive later.

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

I am tackling the monster. My approach is to go after all the commons I can find at a good price. I am holding off on the HOFers unless the price is awesome because I know this will take me years and my income will increase as I get farther away from school.

[Craig M.]

DJ,

I have always been a baseball set builder and really enjoy the hunt and the feeling achieved as the set gets closer to completion.

When building my 1952Topps set, I always went for commons first as quantity was more important to me for two reasons. My dollar seemed to go further and the set seemed to fill up the pages faster making my binder thicker. I would enjoy some days just flipping through the binder pages looking at all of the '52s that I acquired. I could not have done that if I just had a few HOF's.

I do want to say that you must contemplate what you will do with the set when finished. Will you keep it in your collection for many years or will you sell it soon after you built it and really enjoyed looking at it. The reason I say this is that condition comes into play.

Since I knew that my budget would probably never see a Mantle above a PSA2, I therefore would acquire all cards just a little a above that grade. It seemed a waste of money to collect NM 52's and then have a PSA2 Mantle because I knew that when I sold it, that Mantle was the card the buyer was going to look at and base his buy price on.

By the way, it took me forever to find Norm Cash (the last card needed to complete.

Always A Setbuilder,

Craig M.

[smtjoy]

On the really tough sets I collect that each card is equally hard, I go for quantity as thats less I will need in the future. I take HOFers when its one or the other single cards.

I also think there are slightly more HOFers out there than commons from really hard sets, kids were more likely to save the cobbs/wagners/ruths vs the no names. An example would be M101-6, I have seen 4-5 Ruths vs many commons I have never even seen once in 5 years.