Busting up something you previously chased

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I spent 10 years putting together a collection of Hall of Fame Rookie Cards, however, mine included both pre-war as well as post-war and also included all players, managers, executives, umpires, pioneers and negro leaguers. Needless to say, the task was extremely challenging and a whole lot of fun.

Along the way, I needed many tough cards and, sometimes, the only way to get them was via trade. Many times, I would not make a deal if I had to give up a card from my "set". Ultimately, I had all 300 HOF'ers, at that time, some were not true rookie cards but the earliest cards that I could afford. Some were also team cards, postcards, etc.

I reached the point where I had completed about 85% of the true rookie card set and the remaining ones were either too rare or too expensive for me to continue to pursue, such as the Baltimore News Ruth, Just So Young, etc.

At this point, I made an extremely tough decision to break up my "set" and sell off the lower-tier HOF'ers. What I found was that once I gave up the first card from my "set", the flood gates opened and I was willing to part with just about anything as the group no longer represented a "set" anymore. This followed by selling off the post-war, bigger name HOF'ers as I figured they would be much easier to replace down the road if I chose to do so. Finally, the bigger name pre-war stars followed as I no longer "needed" any of them for my "set".

As of today, my last coupe of cards will be auctioned off in REA, coming up in a couple of months and my focus has shifted to other things. As you can imagine, the decision to sell off my collection was a gut wrenching one but got much easier, card by card, as the sales process continued.