[Bestdj777]

Welcome to the site. It looks like we have very similar collecting interests. I pick up a few cards here and there of my favorite players (my first large purchase was a 68 Topps Ryan which I have subsequently had signed) but focus primarily on Mantle cards.

A couple pieces of advice:
1. Give some serious thought to what direction you would like to take your collection before you start purchasing a lot of cards. I think a lot of us have started way to broad and now have a lot of cards that don't really fit our collecting goals.

2. Once you identify your goals, consider creating a spreadsheet to track your card purchases. I am chasing every Mantle card ever made (except regionals and test issues). Before I created a running checklist, I would accidentally purchase duplicates here and there. The checklist makes it easier to determine what I have and what I need.

3. I started out purchasing almost exclusively from eBay. Sometimes there are better deals to be had though when you purchase through one of the auction houses, particularly if you aren't going after high grade cards. I recently bought a card off of Clean Sweep Auctions at about 66% of the going rate on eBay. There are also good cards to be had on the BST section of Net54. It may seem strange/scary at first to exchange money with complete strangers on there, often without paypals protections, but I have never run into an issue with any of the members I have dealt with. And, I think that my experience is fairly common.

4. Do as much research as you can before making purchases. Track completed sales, watch auctions, etc. There are few traditional auctions on eBay now a days, so it is often hard to ascertain the value of a card as they sit up there for months with really high buy it now prices. For example, for the longest time, I thought that the 59 Home Run Derby Mantle was a $3,000+ card. I got into a discussion with a fellow collector and learned that my price calculation for the card was really off.

5. Use the Net54 resources. I don't find the search feature on the site particularly helpful in many cases, but there is a way to conduct searches on google and limit the results to those coming from this site. If you cannot find answers there, you can often get answers to questions by posting on here. People are really helpful and friendly around here. And, you really cannot find a more knowledgeable group of collectors anywhere.