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Posted By: T206Collector

My first T206 cards were a Matty White Cap and Bender Portrait that I bought in 1997 from a guy whose grandfather left him a cigar box filled with T206 cards. The guy wanted $500 to travel to Vegas back then, so I obliged him. The Matty graded a 5 and the Bender a 4. It was not a great deal back then, but it has turned into a pretty good one in the last few years. I now have about 510 of the cards in the set, 135 of which are slabbed by SGC, and I continue to upgrade to improve my SGC set registry. I concur that the best thing to do is buy in bulk in lots whenever you get the chance, and then sell back the worse condition doubles individually in order to cut the overall cost of the collection. Recently, I sold 10 graded cards from my collection in order to finance large future purchases -- Ty Cobb, specifically, as I only have the bat on variation.

In recent months, the price for raw/ungraded T206 cards has gone through the roof, if you ask me. Last weekend I sold about a dozen beaters-VG cards on ebay for two to three times what I paid for them just in the past couple of years. Yet, the price of SGC 30's and 40's remain relatively affordable. I think that is because you only compete with true collectors for SGC material, whereas lots of new collectors go after the raw stuff because they think it may be worth more than they're paying. As such, I am not sure there is much value in buying ungraded singles. I believe the real value is in SGC graded 2's, 3's and 4's. So, in short, buy raw cards only in bulk, grade the ones that will grade a 2, 3, 4 or higher. Sell the doubles, and buy graded singles to fill out your collection.

That's been my system for awhile and it has been working well for me.

Good luck!