[kailes2872]

The most fun that I have had building sets have been '56 and '67 which were pretty much done card by card. I remember specific cards in that set so much better than the others and have both of them exactly as I want them. However, similar to you, they are the most expensive ones. The best value were the ones that I found that only needed a card or two upgraded - but after the first couple of weeks, they go into the safe and I haven't looked at them.

A guy on this board that was in the same post war set quest as me had a method and I thought that it was really smart. He would buy multiple versions of the same set, cherry pick the best set and then sell off the others as complete. It is capital intensive, but it allowed him to upgrade to the best possible version for himself and then sell of the others as complete and get the majority of his investment back. I did a version of that with my 50 Bowman set and it allowed for a pretty nice version - however, I have not taken the plunge on buying multiples of early 50's sets as I didn't want to lay out that much cash and then hope that it sells - as I tend to be the guy that gets $.30 cents on the dollar for my stuff.

Similar to a lot of people, I look for large lots for the commons - as I hate spending $10-$20 per card on a common that will be absorbed into the set cost at about $3-$4 a card. I then go card by card on the stars to get the exact one that I want. As a result, all of my HOFers for '54, '55, and '56 Topps are at least PSA 6 and gives nice uniformity.

Best of luck to you.