Posted By:
DaveI would start with the more inexpensive cards, just to get used to buying, grading, judging sellers, and so on. I made my first purchase February 2004, so have been at it for just over a year. I had the good fortune that never happens - "My grandfather found it in a trunk in the attic." Actually, it was my wife's great uncle, and her dad got the set out of his uncles trunk in the attic, with the Uncle's consent. True story. So, I started with about 80% of the set. I've now bought about 80 cards, am down to 21 missing. This doesn't count Wagner, Plank, Nodgrass, Magie, Demmitt (St. L), O'Hara (St.L), or Doyle NY Nat'l. Some may think my exception list is too long, particularly the St. L cards.
The mistakes I've made were in buying too quickly on cards that weren't very good. I didn't get badly burned on these, but they are below the grade of the rest of the set.
The other advice is to bring money. This set can get expensive. I try to get mostly grade 4 cards, some 3 and some 5, the price almost doubles to get to a 5 from there. A 4 generally costs about 40% more than a 3.
Even though I'm close to the end, I've put off buying some of the more expensive cards, so I'm looking at close to $5k for the 21 missing if all were in grade 4. That includes Cobb bat off and Matty Port as my two bigest tickets.
My experience is that there has been 20% to 25% increase in these prices since last summer.
When I got started, I spent about an hour each week collecting a list of prices and grades on any T206 that sold on ebay that had been professionally graded. Forget PRO and CSA, and don't bother with MK cards. This will take a lot of time, but then you can look up what a recent sale went for. Record the back if it is at all uncommon, as well. I did this in Excel, and sort by name to get them alphabetical. You need to learn the set well to know which cards need a pose description, which players only have one card.
I do all my buying from my missing list, I almost bought Mordicai Brown Port because it was listed as missing. It turns out his port has the word Cubs across his chest, but his Cubs batting card is listed as Cubs on Chest. I applied that title to my port, and showed the port as missing. Luckily, I looked at the real cards, and realized my mistake before spending $120 for a grade 3 card I already have. So, check your missing list very carefully, and be meticulous about logging purchases.
After about 3000 entries, I started logging only my missing list. I can do that in 10 minutes per week.
Good Luck with this.