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T206CollectorOkay, so about a year ago, I completed the Monster (save Magie, Doyle, Wagner and Plank) with the purchase of Cy Young Bare Hand from Connecticut dealer Chet Woods (if you don't know him, you should, great dealer!). Anyway, it turns out that was just the beginning as my next goal is to have the entire collection graded, with an average SGC grade of 40. I'm about 200 away at the moment, but we purchased a house in September and have another child (our second) on the way in January and so, well, yes it is impossible for me to spend any real money on cards anymore. I have spent about $100 over the past three months -- after spending $500-$1000 a month for awhile there. Now I have taken to trading cards with rarer backs for upgrades of the others; as well as downgrading small portions of my collection to upgrade larger portions of others.
At this rate I'll never get there. But I have taken a lot of comfort in the recent posts about people just beginning their T206 journeys; though it has also made me a little jealous. I remember quite well my first two T206 cards, Matty White Cap/Bender Portrait, followed by a Chase White Cap Throwing, and a Moeller and a Myers batting. They joys of beginning the walk up the hill are really incomparable -- completion in some ways is anti-climactic. But I have found that even when you keep a set together, that there are so many ways to enjoy collecting within that set through upgrades, downgrades, etc. that the journey really never ends. And, of course, I don't get to take the cards with me to the grave -- they will be sold off eventually by an heir that doesn't understand them. But they're all mine, currently, and it is a sort of responsibility to make it the best that I can within my means at the time.
So, anyway, I happen to think that our Grand Old Board would be a pretty lonely place without T206 cards. Sure there are lots of collectors with varying interests, but I think it's stating the obvious to say that T206 is at the core of the pre-war baseball cards. There really should be more posts devoted to its intricacies (backs, factories, images, conditions, rarities, etc.).