[Oscar_Stanage]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Very Long Journey but what a great start and I like your strategy on the cards you selected so far

thank you Jeffrey. Some more experienced collectors advised getting the big cards first... this makes complete sense because if I ran out steam now, I would be easily able to sell what I have, as opposed to trying to find buyers for boat load of commons. but the good news is that i am not out of steam and I plan to keep going.

my goal is to get to the 520, and also have 1 of each back (not ty cobb back). Most of the off-backs will be commons, but if I can afford one with a hall of famer, that I will do it. The WaJo sovereign is one my favorites because it checks both boxes.

One thing I have learned from my experience... the only way to really learn the 'true market' is to buy a lot of cards and make mistakes. I have a much better handle on all of the nuances of the market like the date of grade, old slab, etc. than I did coming in. The number grade is basically valueless to me at this point. all that matters is the price relative to similar quality sales. the lower end of the grading scale has really changed. recently graded 2s are in-line with a lot of older 4s. it makes a lot of cards unbuyable at auction because they sell at as much as 50% higher than they should - and I am not exaggerating. And such a high percentage of the market does not seem to care.