Guidance Needed from the Set Builders

[kailes2872]

Last night was a big night as I finally got '61 and now have 57-85. Up until now, I have been buying the sets and then upgrading as needed. I had minimal upgrades with 57, 62, 64, 65, 66, 69. 59 was a major upgrade (but I bought the original set very cheap), 58, 60, 70, 71, 72 had a modest amount, but still provided good value by the time that the upgrades were done versus the original price for the set. I paid more for the '61 up front than I did for any of the other sets, but I believe that I will have less than a couple hundred in upgrades and it is a very strong EXMT-NRMT set.

Which brings me to my current crossroads. Last night, there was a VG/VGEX '55 that I could have gotten for about 2 grand. The Clemente was probably a 3 OC, the Koufax was creased, the Killebrew was solid, Snider was almost filler, and the Mays was pretty strong. Commons were pretty solid in the VGEX-EX range. If I would have bought the set, I would have eventually upgraded Clemente to at least a 5 (possibly a 6), Koufax to a 6, and the Snider as well. By my count, that would been at least 2 grand in those 3 cards. At that point, I would have had 4 grand into it and a pretty uniform set. I would have had some value in the 3 cards that were upgraded, but I tend to hold onto them.

Since there are 340 cards in '56, 206, in 55, and 280 in '54, I was wondering if the smart thing to do would be to look for a large lot of cards from each of these years and then collect the stars star by star in the holder that I am looking for - or if there is still value in finding the entire set together (and knowing that I will be paying a pretty solid price at the grade that I am looking for). My big fear is that if I buy raw and send in the big cards for grading, they will come back at a lower grade than the raw description. For example, something called EXMT will come back as a 4 VGEX and I will want to upgrade to the higher grade.


Very long winded way of asking - those who have completed the smaller count sets like 54-56, did you do it card by card to get the stars in the specific grade that you were looking for, or did you buy it complete?

If it is a card by card with stars, that strategy is a little different for me than the whole set as I would probably look for starter lots in each and begin filling in the big cards in all three simultaneously as I find the right deal. If it is buying the entire set at one time, I would save up, buy 56, upgrade the set as needed, then buy 55, rinse and repeat, etc.


Thanks for any feedback.
Kevin