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

[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.

[AGuinness]

This is a good thread, sorry I didn't read it earlier...

My conundrum now is around my T206 team set for the Red Sox and the fact that I'm looking for a different back for each player. I've got the money to pull the trigger on a rare back Speaker, but I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be until the right card becomes available. It could be tomorrow, of course, but it might also be a year, two years or even more (based on what I've seen on CardTarget.com and the sales history). I've got other collecting goals and am wondering if I save all my funds for when the Speaker does pop up, or get a little bit of gratification by acquiring other cards. I guess in the end, it's a good problem to have...

[drcy]

I have always collected rarities-- from cards to photos to others--, but not as sets. So when an item came up that I know was rare, I would try to get it, but it was never a matter of trying to assemble a set.

[Rich Falvo]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

This is a good thread, sorry I didn't read it earlier...

My conundrum now is around my T206 team set for the Red Sox and the fact that I'm looking for a different back for each player. I've got the money to pull the trigger on a rare back Speaker, but I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be until the right card becomes available. It could be tomorrow, of course, but it might also be a year, two years or even more (based on what I've seen on CardTarget.com and the sales history). I've got other collecting goals and am wondering if I save all my funds for when the Speaker does pop up, or get a little bit of gratification by acquiring other cards. I guess in the end, it's a good problem to have...

Same situation here. I'm working on a Providence set and can go months between finding a new card, so I'm always debating whether to save up or work on another set. I miss the buzz of buying something, so I'm gradually working on a Sport Kings set too since they are available and many of them are inexpensive.

[brian1961]

Luke, I can only speak from the standpoint of postwar sports card collecting. If that disqualifies my remarks, please move on.

Since I began collecting at the age of 4, my life has been characterized by gravitating to the obscure, scarce, and while I would not say under-appreciated necessarily, as I later found out, the items I enjoyed were toys and things that one would not easily encounter as a child, and I suppose were marketed to those that wanted something a little better than a dime store toy.

My first toys were Tonka, but they were so large for me. Then, walking with my Mom during a shopping trip in Wilmette, Illinois at Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company, I happened upon a display of DINKY TOYS from Great Britain. Love at first sight.

I had regular dime store toy soldiers. Then, while stopping at an Oasis rest stop to eat, afterwards I wandered through their gift shop, looking for toys. I found them, among which were the Marx Warriors of the World. Again, love at first sight. I selected a Viking shooting an arrow---Haakon. A couple years later, I discovered a display of Britains soldiers. Wow. I was in love with the knights that were shooting an arrow from a crossbow. I begged to get 3 of them, and they ran 50 cents each! I still have them.

I loved my Topps, but the difficult to collect Post Cereal commanded more of my respect and admiration. I had to "work" to acquire them, gobbling down many bowls of, let us say, healthy and not very appetizing, gravelly cereal, such as 40% Bran Flakes. Sure, I could easily eat lots of Alpha Bits, but as some of you know, certain players only appeared on boxes of the less popular cereals. So, you want that player, Brian, ya gotta eat THAT cereal. To a kid, that was work. Also, I had to make sure I was ready to go with my Mom when she was doing her grocery shopping. I might have to miss the 3 Stooges, or Clutch Cargo, but it was worth it!

Fast forward to the early 70s, when I was extremely privileged to get in on the early card collector conventions. While I went for Topps and Bowman stars I wanted, THE CARDS AND COINS I PRIZED THE MOST WERE THE BAZOOKA, POST CEREAL, JELL-O, SALADA TEA COINS and DAN-DEE POTATO CHIPS. In a couple years I discovered other exotic scarcities and rarities----Glendale Meats Tigers, Johnston Cookies Braves, Old London coins, Wilson Wieners, and Stahl-Meyer Franks. Rarely were these for sale, when they were just as rarely seen. They were either highly-regarded trade bait, or auction material. The few for sale were smashed, creased, and often stained, and you didn't even consider the card's centering; they were too tough to find in the first place!

My eye was always discriminating. I kept my poor Dad waiting for half an hour while I scrutinized every piece of jewelry at the department store, picking out the piece I loved best, to give to my dear Mom for her Christmas present from me. I was 5 or 6 at the time.

My father enjoyed nice gadgets, and he was frugal and hard on himself to a point. However, the time came in 1959 when he bought a "very nice used car"----an over the top elegant 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, the third one imported to America. I guess heads always turned whenever he drove the Gullwing. My family were members of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America. In our Chicago chapter, my Mom and Dad's 300SL was the centerpiece of the club. Now, I cannot say that I tried to copy my Dad's taste for something exotic, unusual, and attractive, but that's how it has turned out. I sure cannot afford a Bugatti Veyron, but my 1/43rd exotic model car collection definitely speaks loud and clear that I know what an important Le Mans and other historically significant racing sports car is.

All to answer your OP question, "Does it affect your enjoyment?"

Mate, it IS my enjoyment. ---Brian Powell

[the-illini]

I love the obscure stuff - the bulk of my collection is "non-mainstream" vintage cards.

My favorite set is a good example...

[NiceDocter]

I have always enjoyed the unusual and off beat items. What fun is it to collect something everyone else already has or is easily available on line any time you want it? For this reason, I was never interested much in T 206 cards (from childhood on) and like many here have only owned maybe 20 or 30 in my life. I kinda looked at them as "commons" back in the day in the first part of my adult collecting in the late 1970s and on...... although I do understand that there are some tremendous rarities in backs and conditions...... if you want a real laugh, I always kind of looked at Old Judge cards in the same light!!!! To each his own, but I still get much more of a kick chasing down something Ive never seen before ...... if you an obscure set collector it almost goes without saying that you eventually branch out into other areas and pretty soon (like so many people here I am willing to bet) you've got your wife or mother or girlfriend saying.....WHY DONT YOU JUST OPEN UP A STORE???? Boxes of stuff everywhere!!!! but enjoying it!!

[aljurgela]

... could be categorized as obscure. I think that in my entire negro league / Cuban card collection, there are just a handful of cards that have MORE than 20 copies grade and most have less than 10. For me, it has been a practice in patience and excitement when one of the cards that I have been looking for finally becomes available... or is seen for the first time. To each his own, but I love to try and find out where EVERY copy of a card that I owe is located, a task that would be nearly impossible for nearly any T206 card outside of, perhaps, the Wagners. While the tribes that I belong to in these small niches are small, they are extremely passionate, as am I.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by 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.

But just think about picking up a (relatively) lot of cards from a super obscure set? It can feel pretty good to have a large accumulation of cards almost no one has (or cares about, sometimes ) even one of.
.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Leon

But just think about picking up a (relatively) lot of cards from a super obscure set? It can feel pretty good to have a large accumulation of cards almost no one has (or cares about, sometimes ) even one of.
.

That sounds like most everything I spend time collecting these days, hahahaha.

[x2drich2000]

Originally Posted by Leon

But just think about picking up a (relatively) lot of cards from a super obscure set? It can feel pretty good to have a large accumulation of cards almost no one has (or cares about, sometimes ) even one of.
.

This hits my current collecting habits dead on. The longer i've collect, the more i've moved from more common to rarer cards, regardless of who else likes the set. I love the feeling of knowing I have 40% of the known cards from a set. It just stinks when you know where half the other cards are and know they won't be available for a long time.

DJ

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

It just stinks when you know where half the other cards are and know they won't be available for a long time.

DJ

+1000 (except “stinks” is an understatement).

[Luke]

So, the reason I started this thread is that I recently got into the "1917 set" (for lack of a better term). It's kind of a weird feeling to get all excited about a set, read everything you can find about it online, and then..........wait for something to show up that you can buy.........

On the bright side, it probably saves me money since there aren't a ton of cards out there on the market for me to overpay for before I know what I'm doing.

I'm working on the five different backs as if they are one set, because that's the way it feels to me. Still need my first Standard Biscuit back. Since I'm just starting, I'm probably not looking to set any new records for prices, but if anyone has any of these laying around that they would sell for a fair price, please let me know. Brian has already been a big help (thank you Brian).

[ValKehl]

Luke, collecting the 1917 b & w cards with different backs should be a fun endeavor - good luck with it. I believe a sixth back, a blank back, also exists for these cards. Nice pickup re the Merchants Bakery - Rixey card; I almost picked up this same card a couple of years ago when it appeared in Heritage and LOTG auctions, but I decided to impatiently hold out for the re-appearance of the Merchants Bakery - WaJo card that sold in Heritage a few years ago.

[Luke]

Val, you're right. Shouldn't be that hard to count to six, but I am pretty tired, heh. I have 5 of the 6 so far and hopefully will end up with multiples of each back.

[Danny Smith]

Well I’m 42 cards into the 50 card e105 Mello Mint set. It’s taken maybe 10 years but it’s a ton of fun. It started because I liked that it had Smith in the name and I was getting bored of the t206 set (which I completed this year without plank / Wagner). I’ve since completed a number of caramel and tobacco sets but this one is my ultimate chase.

I started when no one really cared about mellos and picked up 25 pretty easily. There are some other awesome Mello guys who have come and gone which has at times led to some crazy prices but spirited competition and strong collecting friendships. The cards are tough to come by now because they have grown in popularity as type cards and are just a mysterious set but I keep on trucking,

I get super pumped when they come up at auction or someone reaches out regardless of whether I need the card - and when one of the ones I need comes up it is beyond exciting. Most of the time I don’t win the last ones I need which totally sucks but man when I win it is just awesome - despite royally overpaying sadly. For better or worse there are 2 or 3 of us going hard for the same cards.

It’s a tough set. It’s getting pricey. But damn it I’m gonna finish it. And my kids will get them knowing how much of a bear it is to complete.