[shaunsteig]

Gorgeous cards, so I wish you good luck in enhancing your collection.

I'm no expert, but here's my personal opinion:

• For current evaluations of market conditions, you should consult several sources: price guides (eg SMR), eBay search on completed listings, and my personal favorite is vintagecardprices.com. For such large-ticket purchases, it'd be well worth even a one-month subscription to VCP to check that you're not overpaying.

• Beware of large-ticket card purchases on eBay, particularly of top-shelf cards (eg, 52 Topps Mantle, T206 Cobbs). These are prime candidates for counterfeiting, manipulating TPG holders, etc. You can do a search on this forum to find several fakes that have been called out in the past. This is relevant both for auctions and for BIN. Two of the dealers that your links point to -- 707 sportscards and joevintagesports -- have very large inventories, which to me is reassuring, although I don't recall having dealt with either personally previously. I do have the impression that 707's BIN prices are way above market, whereas joevintage's are very compelling, but my searches have been mostly for T206s so I can't comment on the particular cards you're looking at (for some reason VCP's website won't open this morning, otherwise I'd do a prelim check for you).

• I can't really predict the future direction of those cards, as I haven't followed those particular ones, so I'll defer that to others. I will share my own thought that the economy is in a general funk, and will be so for a while, so the question is whether you'd be buying at the nadir or whether we're still on the downslope. If you go with a "Best Offer" on eBay, I'd aim low and then you can work your way up.

Hope that helps,
--S