There are a lot of guys who use ebay as a museum. From personal reference, and it is considerable in the case of T206s, the BST board here is the best place to buy as a general rule.
A lot depends on what you are looking for. There are PLENTY of t206s out there so long as you are looking for ordinary backs. You will find your balance of grade, price tolerance, etc over time. At first, I was just a "hole filler" and would take any grade so long as the price seemed fair. I ended up liking raw cards that were largely in the range of a "2." They still had nice eye appeal, I could afford them without raiding the kids' college fund, and a little wear on a 100+ year old card gave it a certain charm, though others would disagree. Finished up my 520 set, which I periodically upgrade my earliest follies that are too ugly to live with. If everything works out according to plan I hope to add a Plank someday and possibly a Magie, which is cheaper but not nearly as interesting to me.
I consider the T206 a "relationship" set…something I will work on and with throughout my collecting life. I have a couple of back runs I am working on…one a representative back grouping, the other a run of Davidson in all his back permutations. I also just let myself pick up anything I like…I bought one with a ToyTown stamp recently because the story is kind of interesting.
If I have one real piece of advice, it is to make friends while you are doing it. I have met some fabulous people that I would not have had the opportunity to if I had just simply placed and order on ebay. I have not met all of them in person, but there are several I have conversed with at length though email or phone and learned quite a lot. In many ways, these friendships are the crowning piece to my T206 collection.
|