Wow, those are killer '55s, John! LOVE the Thorpe. At this point I don't have any other high grade '55s to post. Most of my post-war sets are raw, but I've been slowly picking up graded stars in these sets when I see a good deal.
In general, I like raw cards so I can keep my sets in binders and actually *look* at them when I want to. I'm not a big fan of stacks and stacks of plastic
Plus I just can't see the value in getting common cards graded as I'm not into the registry game and it seem like a waste of $$$ that could be used to purchase other things.
Speaking of Mr. Thorpe, I picked this up this week and am pretty excited about it.
jeff