Collecting Obscure/Scarce/Under-appreciated sets - Does it affect your enjoyment?

[conor912]

My guess is that no one collects anything they don't enjoy. Some people enjoy the long, hard hunt, while others enjoy having their pick from the abundance. There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's.

[Luke]

Hey Conor. I know what you mean, but isn't there a point where the scarcity of something affects how much you enjoy collecting it?

For instance, I love the e107 set. I can only afford lower grade copies, and let's say 30 of those sell publicly each year. I get a few packages per week that contain rare/tough T206 front/back combos. I like the e107 and t206 sets just about the same amount, but I get a lot more enjoyment out of t206s, because I am able to constantly search for and acquire them.

Another example is if you like watching baseball and football equally, you'd get more enjoyment from a baseball season because there are about 10x more games to watch.

[ullmandds]

i love knowing how few there are of a given card I may have as opposed to being in the Titus club!

[Rhotchkiss]

Luke, as you know, like you, my first love is rare-back T206s, especially with HOF fronts. But over the last year I have branched out into caramel, confectionary, rare T cards, and the M101-4/5 and E121(ish) cards as well. And I have grown to love many of these; not as much as I love t206s, but I find collecting them very satisfying. And I have made good friends in the process.

For me, my journey into these other sets are because of players, not the sets themselves. I want to collect Joe Jackson and Honus Wagner -- that means T206 is a non-starter, so I started looking at E-90 & M101-4/5 for Jax and all the E and confectionary cards for Wags. Turns out, many of these cards have the same hallmarks I love with T206 -- front/back combos! I am currently attempting a back run of the Wagner throwing pose, which has introduced me to American Caramel, Nadja, Crofts Cocoa and Candy (blue and black (and red?)) Dockman, blank backs, E101 & E102, General Baking, Managerie, Mothers Bread, Mello Mint, E106s and the T216 variations. And the M101-4/5 and E121(ish) cards are similarly awesome with all the various backs.

In some cases, I find the E card backs even cooler than T206. I mean, I love that the card below was only given out to customers who shopped at 11 South 15th street, Philadelphia. Think about how rare that is and/or how few must have been given out and still remain today.

Back to players -- my T206 Tinker bat off, and Evers yellow sky, back runs lead me to T213, T214, and T215. I now own a handful of T213's, including a Fact 8 overprint, I own Two (2) T215 pirate backs, and I have a very rare T214 Speaker, which I love.

But the best part.... there are plenty of people, on this Board and elsewhere, who collect these cards! Not as many as T206, but I have made a number of recent connections/friendships with guys who have deep knowledge and love of E cards and rare T cards )just look at the T213-3 Fact 8 overprint thread that was popular a few days ago). Indeed, two board members helped me assemble a complete, 11-card E104-II Nadja Pirates set (I cant imagine there are more maybe 2-3 complete sets out there - and after I bought the Wagner at REA, with the help of the Board I was able to get the other 10 cards in 2-3 days, and these are RARE cards); BTW, the E104-I Nadjas Phillies are cool, and who doesnt then love the Williams and Rochester Baking, Cullivans Fireside, etc.

So, in my experience, I have found great pleasure collecting E, Confectionary, rare T, etc cards. I have made new friends and contacts doing so, and I do not find it boring, or even that hard to find what I want. I know you have branched into some other rarer T sets. I encourage you to take that deeper dive. Maybe pick a player, rather than a set, and try a back run -- its a great way to get a feel for all the different great HOF poses out there, but even better, all the cool, Americana-backs that are out there, which show firsthand the amazing history of the cards we collect.

[midmo]

Originally Posted by Luke

Another example is if you like watching baseball and football equally, you'd get more enjoyment from a baseball season because there are about 10x more games to watch.

Or you enjoy the football season more because each game is more important. For me, some of the reasons you collect T206 is exactly why I don't. The scarcity of other issues make them more exciting when you acquire something you've been searching for. There's no right answer. Collect whatever you like. It's all good.

[Leon]

The scarcer the better.....I like to find things that aren't common and many/most T206 seem common compared to other esoteric cards.

Originally Posted by Luke

Hey Conor. I know what you mean, but isn't there a point where the scarcity of something affects how much you enjoy collecting it?

For instance, I love the e107 set. I can only afford lower grade copies, and let's say 30 of those sell publicly each year. I get a few packages per week that contain rare/tough T206 front/back combos. I like the e107 and t206 sets just about the same amount, but I get a lot more enjoyment out of t206s, because I am able to constantly search for and acquire them.

Another example is if you like watching baseball and football equally, you'd get more enjoyment from a baseball season because there are about 10x more games to watch.

[PowderedH2O]

There are cards that just attract me, while others don't. I don't have the deep pockets of some other collectors, so I don't even bother trying to attempt sets from before 1933 or so. I just grab cards that grab me. No, I don't care if it is obscure. Often, the obscurity is what appeals to me. It isn't that it is rare or hard to get. It is that I don't see it all the time. I think this is why exhibits and other old black and white cards appeal to me so much. The cards are simple and I don't see them on every dealer's table or site.

[Pat R]

Several people have commented how easy T206's are to collect but
that actually depends on how/what you collect. I have been putting
together a (partial) back run of Conroy batting for 7/8 years now.
It is confirmed with a SC350/25 back but I haven't seen
a single copy come up for sale during that period yet there have been
two different Drums and a Brown Lenox (I bid on them but they were out
of my budget) sold during that time. There are no recorded sales in the
past twelve years and I have never seen a scan of a SC factory 25 Conroy.

The same thing can be claimed on other confirmed combos with semi common
backs It would be pretty easy to come up with a big list that have only single
sales over a 10 year period of subjects with Tolstoi, EPDG, Old Mill ect...
backs.

[ValKehl]

I don't collect sets, except for a couple of very small, obscure sets, namely E222 A.W.H. Caramels & 1925 Holland Creameries, and a few subsets. I mostly focus on type cards and cards of all the players on the 1924 Senators Championship Team. I get the most collecting thrill from obtaining cards that are very scarce/rare, especially 1-of-1s. And, I am just as thrilled to obtain a rare card of Joe Nobody as a rare card of a HOFer.

For example, Byron "By" Speece appeared in 21 games (54.1 innings) for the 1924 Senators, achieving a 2-1 W-L record and a 2.65 ERA. He appeared in one game of the 1924 World Series and pitched 1 inning, with no decision. Speece subsequently had cups of coffee with the 1925-26 Indians and the 1930 Phillies. He also pitched in 632 minor league games from 1922 through 1945 (age 48!). He pitched for the Seattle Rainiers his last 3 years, 1943-45, and he appears in the Centennial Flour card sets for each of these years. Below are his 1943 (1 in the pop reports) and 1944 (0 in the pop reports) cards - I'm still searching for Speece's 1945 card (0 in the pop reports).

[Luke]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Kind of made me realize that I had a preconceived notion of what people's answers would be, and not surprisingly that turned out to be an error on my part.

Ryan, I really liked your post. Your collection is incredible. And, it makes perfect sense that there are a bunch of other collectors out there doing the same thing. Just because I haven't met them doesn't mean they aren't out there.

For some weird reason, it seems like I can't just buy one card from one set and move on. I'd be a terrible type collector because I feel this need to accumulate a bunch of cards from sets I like, rather than just picking up random things that catch my eye. So branching out for me will be a pretty slow process.

I guess I just wanted to see if anyone else felt the same way. I buy and/or sell T206s everyday, so I get a constant "collecting buzz" (for lack of a better term). I'm sure if you collect all or most of the scarcest pre-war sets, you'd be able to find something to buy pretty often, but since I'm just starting with a couple non t205/t206/t207 sets, it's pretty quiet out there. One obvious solution is to keep adding to the scope of my collection so that I'm not having to be quite so patient.