[Joe_G.]

I'm one of several who collect only Detroit but enjoy studying the whole set. Collecting by team can be very rewarding. You can start going after a single example of every player and then extend that to all the poses if you're up for the challenge that may very well last a lifetime. Some teams and subsets are easy than others. As an example, the 1887 Detroit cards are easiest, 1888 are most difficult, and 1889 somewhere in-between.

Des Moines would be a tough team set, particularly the players who only have 1888 cards. There are other subsets to consider including Browns Champs, HOFers, particular year or type such as Script or numbered, pose types (2-player, sliding, portraits, horizontals), one from each team in particular League/Association, and the ever popular team subset. The set is loaded with so much history. Hope you enjoy the book when it arrives, it will give you a good idea of what the set has to offer.

One potential subset was just discussed over the past weekend but is probably a couple pages buried by now. It was a discussion on 1889 International Association cards. You might want to check that out as well.

Joe M., keep your focus, the last two cards will surface. If you want to know the players on the 1887 Championship team who weren't introduced to the set until a later year with another team, they are as follows:

Ed Beatin
Charlie Bennett
Fred Dunlap
Henry Gruber
Jimmy Manning
Bill Shindle
Sy Sutcliffe (only played in World Championship)

Between them, they have 38 poses for which I still need a handful. This subset is actually larger than the 1887 Detroit run of 28 cards.