520: Reflections on a 40(ish)-year t206 journey

[unamuzd1]

I hit 520 yesterday. It still doesn't feel real. I've never "completed" a vintage set before, and this one... this one's been in part of my life for almost 40 years.

Travis, who traded me the last card I needed (thank you again, Travis!), asked that I post something about building the set, some reflections - and out of respect to him, I'm going to do that. Out of respect to everyone else, I'm going to keep what goes on the board somewhat brief, then link to a much longer version I put up in a blog.

When did you start? I'm not positive when it was. My dad gave my brother and me vintage cards for Christmas every year when we were young, shirt boxes filled with plastic sheets containing Topps and Bowman cards from the 50s that he bought in bulk from the local card store. Every once in a while, though, there was something else. A Goudey, maybe, or if we were really lucky, a tobacco card. I was probably 8 or 9 when dad gave me the card that made me fall in love with the set.



It may not have been my first t206, but it's the first one that mattered.

When did you get serious about the set? Potentially completing it? Not for a while. I picked them up when I saw them at card shows and could afford them, but I didn't have any "meaningful" purchase until probably 1996 or 1997, when I visited the shop of a guy I'd grown up trading cards with. He was building a card and memorabilia business, and we stopped in to say hello. He showed me a collection of low-grade t206 cards he'd picked up. I ended up buying a pretty substantial lot from him, including a couple of Cy Young cards, a Lajoie, and a variety of others. I can only point to a half-dozen cards that I know for sure came from him, but there were probably 20 or 30 I bought that day.

Was that your biggest find? Not even close. That would be the collection I bought from a dealer in Dayton around 2003 or so. It set me back maybe $300 and included my first WaJo and a couple of oddities I posted about in 2004 - the Doolan and Bradley Polar Bears with the missing "ie". It was over 100 cards, all raw, mostly PB.

What was your strategy for collecting? Slow and steady. Like that's a surprise - it took me almost 40 years! These cards were always coming up for sale, and I like getting bargains. So I learned to use sniping services and was patient with my buying.

Any regrets? Well, yeah. Bargain hunting doesn't always work, and I DRAMATICALLY under-estimated how hard it would be to get the Cobb cards. My "only buy bargains" strategy left me needing 3 Cobbs out of the last 10 cards to complete the set, and paying way more than I would have had to pay if I'd gone after them more aggressively at almost any point in the previous 20 years.

Also, I have to live with the knowledge that I got out-sniped on a pair of Broadleafs on eBay back in 1998 or so. Being the under-bidder on one of them with a $45 snipe stung then, and it's way, way worse now!

What was the last card you got, to finish the set?



I made the deal to get me to 519 5 years to the day after I entered the "Monster Number" thread at 318. It took almost another 6 months to get to 520. Thanks yet again to Travis for trading me the Lundgren, and to TonyO for selling me the Demmitt and O'Hara that were numbers 518 and 519!

(Something I learned tonight: Carl Lundgren pitched in his last major league game on April 23, 1909. On April 23, 2021, Carl Lundgren arrived at my house and became #520 in my t206 set.)

What's the best thing about collecting t206? It's the same "best thing" as for anybody who finds something they enjoy that a bunch of other people also enjoy: the community. I don't post a ton, but I've learned a lot from other collectors at Net54, and other collectors and dealers I've interacted with over the past 40 years.

Now what? Heh. No idea. Probably more back-stamps.

Wait - this is the SHORT version? Yeah. Here's a link to the long version, for anybody who's curious: 520