Set-Builder Thread

[brob28]

Wow Ted, kind of hard to follow that amazing collection!!

I'm a little bit of both as for set builder or not. Collected as a child and like most stopped for several years (kept my childhood cards) and would just pick up a few packs here and there to see what was new. When my first child (a son) was born in 2005 life changed, less travel and going out etc. I had a lot more home-time so I decided to build a set to give to him when he was older and chose the 2005 Cracker Jack set. Around this time, while looking through my childhood collection came across a few 1956 Topps cards and I fell in love with the beauty of the set, the spark took. I have since finished '56 and '61 Topps, all the 70's and some early 1980's. My OCD spills over into condition & all variations so my sets take a while to complete (the '72 set almost did me in). I'm currently 98% finished with the Topps '62 master set.

As for why I'm a little bit of both is over the past 11 years while completing my sets, I have also been working on '33 Goudey HOF's, T206 Hall of Famers (back run hopefully), '64 Topps Standup HOF group and many of the Topps All star subsets, 1960 being my personal favorite. I also pick ups specific individual cards with no intention of completing the entire set. My collecting interests seem to meander every which way like an old river. As an example, just the other day I picked up a Topps Venezualan from a board member my first and most likely my last.

This hobby offers so many ways to enjoy it, great stories guys!

[Jobu]

I am not a set builder because my interests are too varied and the sets I would be interested in collecting cost too much money for me to swing, but I just wanted to say that you guys are awesome!

[bnorth]

I have 2 vintage sets. I bought a very nice complete 59 Fleer Ted Williams set from a fellow member a couple years ago. Then a year or so ago a fellow member asked if I wanted some junk era cards for free to look for error cards. Of course I said yes and thank you. I expected maybe a 400 count box, what I received for free blew my mind. I got a medium flat rate box completely full of cards.

That leads to my second set. In the box was a handful of 55 Bowman including several minor star and a few star player cards. So I made it a point to finish that beautiful set with cards buy buying only from fellow members. Still have about a dozen cards to go with the only big name left being the Aaron card.

Building the 55 Bowman set has been super fun but even with the stack of free cards and some great deals it would still have been cheaper to buy a complete set. That being said I will still build another vintage set when I am done with this one. The fun of piecing the set together has been worth way more than the extra price for me.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by brob28

the '72 set almost did me in

I was working on a Topps run and got about 90% the way there until the '72 high numbers broke my spirit and I gave up, sold the entire collection, and moved to prewar.