[Archive]

Posted By: tobacco-r-us

Tim Newcomb, thank you for breaking the pattern, but regardless of the pattern, the bottom line is the enjoyment of collecting the set. ... regardless of grades.

I'm not looking at the set at the moment, but the first T206 set that I started, is made up of 484 or 485 of the most loved cards that were ever loved and handled by every collector since 1909. ... the year that my mother was born.

It has the very first T206 card that I ever purchased, the Herzog, NY Nat'l.
I bought that card for my father, he was a Giants fan, and a McGraw man.

When I started this particular set in the early 1980s, the collectors were the graders.
We learned through experience, and constant handling of the cards.
It was strictly a hands on education.
However, when putting that particular T206 set together, the love affair was not in the grade, but filling in a slot.
I feel very close to this particular T206 RAW set.

The next T206 set was not planned.
It's just missing one card, the second toughest card in the set.

Back in the late 1980s, I had about an hour and a half left at a Lee show in San Francisco before taking a flight back to NYC.
I bumped into a very nice couple that had an old vintage chocolate candy box.
In that box they had a little over 800 "T's."
I knew that, because they had been at a vintage dealers table that I had been at.
They had shown a few of the cards to the dealer, and when I saw the cards, they almost blew my eyeballs out of their sockets. - they were outstanding.
It was early into that particular Lee show, and the dealer didn't want to lay out any money, so he told them to come back later if they hadn't sold them.
I was lucky to bump into them as I was in the process of going through my last run through of the show.
The box had a little over 450 T206s, a good amount of T205s, and some other "T's."
We settled on a mutually fair price -- I thanked him -- and I headed for the airport.
To say that I couldn't wait to get home, and look at the contents of the box, is an understatement.
From then on, I cherry picked whatever I needed for this particular set.
This set is also completely RAW, and I wouldn't be afraid to put it up against any T206 set on any registry.
If you've seen the set, you know it's up there.
RAW is Beautiful.
Having said that.

My favorite T206 set.
Is the one that has been loved by every T206 collector that's ever lived.
Joe