[53toppscollector]

I thought it might be interesting to post here again and add the last chapter, for now, to this adventure. The T206 set still fascinates me for so many reasons, and I will probably be back to it in some form in the future, but I reached a point where I just kind of felt paralyzed with the set. I believe that the high point, I had close to 375 cards toward the complete set, with lots of off backs. But it started to honestly feel like a slog. I found myself paying $35-40 for beat up commons, putting them in the binder, and then looking at my spreadsheet and seeing I still needed like 100 more of those commons. I watched the prices of Cobbs continue to creep up, and reminded myself I still needed all 4 of them, along with some of the other very expensive cards like the Cy Young Portrait, WaJo portrait, etc. I started with a goal of 520, then had conversations with myself like "am I really going to spend $8000 on a Demmitt STL?"...and then I started to negotiate down to 518, and then I started to wonder what the ultimate goal was.

About 7 months ago, I completed the Old Mill SL back run, 48/48, and it felt like a massive accomplishment, but it was really the only accomplishment I felt when collecting the T206s. I had minor moments of joy, where I'd find a really great deal on a HoF with an off back, but ultimately it just felt like a mountain I wasn't going to be able to climb. I mean, that is why they call it the monster, right?

I've thought about other possibilities, like just collecting the HoFs with an off back, but again, the prices on some of those cards are just tough to stomach, given how many there are to collect. I've considered just doing a pure back run, one of each back/factory, so I could have a small collection, with a few really hard/expensive backs. Ultimately, I will probably end up doing that, picking my favorite pose/front for each of the backs, and grabbing a nice copy. But that is on the back burner now, with other projects brewing.

Ultimately, the coolest part of this set is just how expansive and interesting it is. I've collected a TON of data on the set, and I have a lot more I want to do, including eventually revisiting my SweetCap census project, which had to be shelved for a while. This closes the T206 chapter of my collecting. For now.