Question for the board on Caramel sets

[FrankWakefield]

E102's...

[Bicem]

e98 all in the same color for a nice challenge.

[DavidW]

I thought E102 set collecting was difficult due to the Wagner pitching pose which is hard to find. I'd suggest checking out the oldcardboard site and viewing the card images. Determine what sets look most appealing then figure out the costs of Wagners, Cobb and Matthewson.

[Wesley]

Originally Posted by DavidW

I thought E107 set collecting was difficult due to the Wagner pitching pose which is hard to find. I'd suggest checking out the oldcardboard site and viewing the card images. Determine what sets look most appealing then figure out the costs of Wagners, Cobb and Matthewson.

David,

I think you meant to type E102, in response to Frank's suggestion to collect E102s. You are correct though in that there are three rarities in the E102 (Wagner throwing, Miller fielding, and Doyle batting) that make completing this set difficult. The e102 is a great set, but both the Wagner fielding and Cobb cards will both exceed $2000.

Wes

[Leon]

E96 might be a good one for a cost conscious budget. They are scarce, have some unique poses and can be completed in collector grade for less than most others. It also has a smattering of nice HOF'ers too....without Cobby, Honus or Wags to inflate the price....good luck- the quest is a lot of the fun!!

[FrankWakefield]

E102's. (Echo.)

On the back it says there's 25 of them. Collect 25. Get Wagner batting and you're done with Wagner. Same strategy for Doyle and Miller, one of each is enough.

With a Wagner, a Mathewson, a Cobb and a Lajoie in a set of 25, along with other nice HOFers, you'll have nothing of which to be ashamed. I doubt that more that a dozen folks here have a simple set of 25 E102's. I'd doubt that more than 5 of us have what some consider a 'complete' set.

Ratz. I wanted my 500th post to be a bit more cyber-sonic than that...

[E93]

The least expensive color E set is the E96 due to the lack of any of the big name HOFs like Wagner, Cobb, Matty, and Young (no Johnson in any E set from E91-E107). E95 is probably easiest set to complete and can be done without paying 2k for any card, but you would probably be confining yourself to lower grades, at least for Cobb, Wagner and Matty - though even they may be gettable in vg for under 2k. I may be biased, but I think the E93 set is perhaps the nicest looking of the E sets across the board. Again, to stay under 2k for the top-tier HOFs it would probably mean gd/vg or less. But it is a 30 card set with 18 HOF and a ton of eye appeal. Here are some examples. Please forgive my indulgence.
JimB

[Matt]

Hey Scott - So many to choose from!
E93, E95, E96, E98 are all great options, but for my money I give the edge to the colorful artwork on the E92/E101/E102 issues (the E106 issue has the same artwork, but the printing is not nearly as clear as with the other 3 and E105s are going to price you out).

Of those 3 issues, you can decide how big a set you want to chase - on one side you've got E102 with only 29 cards (25 different players) and at the opposite end you've got E92 Crofts Candy/Cocoa and E101 with 50 cards (45 different players). Per card, the Crofts (both Candy and Cocoa) are the toughest, followed by the E101s and the E102s are the most numerous, per player. Between those, I think the E101s and the Crofts Candy are both undervalued considering their scarcity compared to the Cocoas and the E102s. There are about as many Croft's Candy cards of each player as there are Cocoa, but the Cocoa sell for quite a bit more. There are quite a few more E102s of each player then E101s, but they sell for about the same.

Of course, now that you've tamed the monster, if you want to go for an even greater challenge, you can try and tackle the M116 Sporting Life issue, although the artwork isn't nearly as nice as those mentioned above.