Trying to figure out where to go next collecting wise

[boneheadandrube]

An entire era that has room to grow, meaning the "ship hasn't sailed" as you say might be late 1910's to early 1920's

The bigger Sets here are:

-M101-4/5 and their family of ad backed sets
-1917 E135 Collins McCarthy & 1917 H801-8 Boston Store
-E120 American Caramel and their Canadian Sister Set V61 Neilsons
-E121 American Caramel and their family of other ad backed sets
-V100 Willards

You can cross collect something like E121 with its ad backed relatives by just focusing on the fronts as they are the same. The E135 and H801-8 are also similar enough to each other and E121 throw in this mix. Go to VCP and look at the image scroll at the top of each of their set pages and see the similarity. W501 uses the same format as well. Alexander, Hornsby, Sisler, Heilmann, Ruth, Smokey Joe Wood...lots of star power to collect. These are much rarer than T206 and cheaper relative to player quality in my opinion. I'm a T206 guy and all these sets have become very appealing to me this year.