cardsagain: good luck with your sets. I built ungraded '71 through '81 topps baseball and bought complete ungraded '82-'87 topps baseball sets. For the 1950's and 1960's, I built one favorite topps baseball set from each decade. I chose 1957 and 1969 (both ungraded).
I kicked around the idea of building other sets from the '50's and '60's (e.g., 1959), but could never pull the trigger; too many expensive commons of too many players I never heard of. Instead, I bought the book, "The Complete Picture Collection - a 40 Year History 1951-1990 topps Baseball Cards" which has every card front pictured for those years. The book is big and heavy, but cheaper and takes up way less space than having the actual cards from those years. And for me, it sufficiently scratches the itch. I love that book as do my kids who pull it out to look at from time to time.
I am also building a "type baseball set" for each year for the years 1952-1968, excluding 1957, to put in a binder. I chose 9 cards for each year to fill one, 9-pocket page per year. I've "completed" 1958-1960, and 1968. Each 9 pocket page has a few HOF'ers, a checklist, team card, world series card, league leaders card, and/or other "insert" or "all star" card. I pick the cards with the goal providing a sample of cards that gives a good feel for the particular year. I also pick players that I've heard of.
There's many ways to do it, of course, depending on one's interests, financial situation, storage space, and time, among other things.
Again, I wish you the best building those sets!
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