Selling Off Sets in Favor of Singles

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

I am hoping to solicit some advice from you guys. First off I'll say that what I am talking about does involve postwar sets, but I wanted to post here to get more input. There have been a few threads somewhat like this in the past, but it's been a while and this particular dynamic is a little different. I have a nice 1953 Topps set which is vgex-ex overall, with a mixture of graded and ungraded cards. All of the stars are graded and some commons, including many high numbers are graded, too. If there's a crease in the set, I haven't seen it. My 1954 Topps set is much the same, except that there are a few creases...none in the major cards that I am aware of. Simply put, my tastes are changing. At this point, I would rather own graded star cards/rookies and not sets.

I am considering keeping a few key cards from each set (1953: keeping Mantle, Mays, and Jackie/1954: keeping Aaron, Banks, Kaline, both Williams cards, Jackie, and Mays) and selling off the rest and using the resulting funds to buy some graded 50s star cards that I have been wanting. This would streamline my collection in a big way, and I would feel better about my collection's long-term value. I fully realize that I will probably lose some money in the short term by doing this because like any set builder, I spent more building the set than the set will ever be worth, but in the long-term being able to add graded star power should make this worth it.

Am I crazy for breaking up the sets and doing this? I know I am not alone in moving away from sets in favor of exclusively stars. I used to really enjoy the hunt, the chase, but my tastes are changing as I said.

I would appreciate the thoughts of this group. Thanks.