I'm glad this sparked some discussion! I really like hearing what other collectors are passionate about and this is an area I don't think we talked about before. I actually had a similar idea to what Shawn mentioned about combining building a player set and type collecting. The best example I found was Chuck Bednarik - his player set has nice coverage - he was basically a rookie at exactly the right time for football cards.
Thanks John S., Bob's great about the back issues - I'll try to pick that one up and see how it compares to Jeff's 299
Leon, nice to see you on this side of the board - I think it may have been your Heritage auction that introduced me to the term "type collector" - it stuck in my mind until I finally remembered to ask about it. Jeff mentioned 299, how many types did you have and/or were going after?