Question for the T-206 set collectors

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Posted By: Myron

What do you do about the Wagner card? Do you get a reprint to fill in that hole, or do you just leave it empty? Why even attempt to complete that set knowing it's virtually impossible for most people?

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Posted By: Dave

You worry about the other 500 some odd cards first...then the Demmitt, and the O'Hara....then the Plank...then the Wagner.....in other words...worry about it last..ha ha

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Dave is basically right. A T206 set minus "the big four" is considered complete by most.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

For most of us a 520 card set is enough of a challenge and is very, very satisfying
when you attain this goal.
So, for $5 or $10 you find yourself a Wagner reprint that appeals to you and you fill
a slot in your album.
Or, in your ceiling-high stack of plastics.

There are so many interesting cards in this set that in your adventure of collecting
all these Subjects, the last thing on your mind is the "unattainable" Wagner card.
And, then you discover upon acquiring the 520 cards, you want to continue. So, you
branch off to subsets of the T206 set or you do the "back" thing.

TED Z

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Posted By: Dave

Either of you have any knowledge on the last T206 set..minus the big 4 went for in poor condition...poor being PSA 1-2 or SGC 10-20 type? Not necessarily graded.

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Posted By: T206Collector

Sisyphus: Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll back down again -- I keep acquiring T206 cards, but none of them seem to be Honus Wagner...

...still, I traded a boat load of cards for my Magie. Eventually, I'll probably do the same for Plank. Wagner? Who knows.... just keep acquiring T206 cards....

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Posted By: Dylan

The thing is the Plank, Wagner, Magie, & Doyle error are so expensive and rare that even when a seller does have a complete set with some or all of the above cards mentioned the above cards are sold seperatley do to their own value.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey Myron,

Ted, Scott, Dave and T206Collector are telling you right.

I recall my first 3 T206s, bought 'em all at once. A mistake, I think... buy one so you can always know which one was the first one.

Card 100 is a bit of a milestone. Same with 200. Same with the halfway point.

400 seemed like a bunch of them. I recall some collection being sold years ago by an advanced T206 collector, he had 493 different. That was a lot back before eBay. I don't recall the collector's name, but I thought of him when I got my 493rd.

500 is a significant milestone. I'm at about 507.

Back when I was closing in on 100 I bought some reprints, including a Wagner, Plank and Magie... my thoughts were like yours, I can put that Wagner in the hole. At that time my T206s were in top loaders in a box.

As the box got more and more full I moved the cards over to the 15 hole sheets that are made for T cards. The cards looked good in a binder. They were alphabetical a la Beckett. At that point I saw that Wagner hole, but to put that crisp reprint in among the real cards seemed blasphemy, so I didn't do it. I think if you get a reprint, you won't put him in there either.

Now my T206s are in a small box in which my business cards arrived. I have them sorted by team, alphabetically. That seems the best way to sort them to understand them. You can see how the changes in series developed. Hardly anyone sorts them like this. But the old guys did. And I think if 'we' did, then maybe more folks would. For the uninitiated the simple alphabetical listing as in the Standard Catalog is easiest for them to understand.

Patience and persistence! I wish you well with them.

Frank.

My reprint Wagner isn't in that little box with the real guys.

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Posted By: Scot Reader

Dave,
I have no idea. The last big set sale minus the big four was Josh Wolf's. It was all PSA 5s and 6s and went at auction for about $250,000 with the juice.
Scot

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Posted By: Brian

Reprints give me nightmares. Would never think of filling a hole that way...

Question for you guys that have 500+ T206s:

Do you guys mainly keep them raw or do you grade them all? To grade 520 cards would
cost over $5200, which you could use for a nice card.
I have a fair number of them, most of them graded. I think there is something
very aesthetically appealing about looking at ungraded T206s en masse, but then again,
I slab them to preserve the precious gems. Any thoughts?

Brian

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Having a set that is not possible to complete always turns me off....its a bummer.

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Posted By: Dave

Brian..I have nothing near 500 T206's...more like 50. However I think if I happened up on a large lot ungraded, unless they were mostly ex+ condition I wouldn't get the vast majority graded..probably just the higher dollar cards. Most of the ones I buy now I buy already graded...for the addes safety as well as I can pick up PSA 1's and 2's for $20-$30...if I got the cards raw it would still cost $15 per card to get them graded....why not cut to the chase is the way I see it.

Dave

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Posted By: Brian

Dave,
I have to admit that I used to buy T206s exclusively in 3 or better, but lately I tend to agree with you--I am finding it hard to pass up 1s and 2s that cost barely more than the holder, but of course they should still have nice eye appeal. Some very nice 1s and 2s out there.
Brian

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Posted By: steve yawitz

It's almost a non-issue for me. Wagner, Doyle and Plank are almost assuredly unattainable so I just concentrate on the cards that I do have a chance of acquiring. It doesn't bother me at all that there will always be a few holes on my spreadsheet. I do have an O'Hara already, would like to land a Demmitt in the next year or so (especially since St. Louisans are one of the subsets on which I focus) and think a Magie is a reasonable possibility sometime in my lifetime.

I've started, stopped, restarted and broken up a few prized sets so I know one can never say never in this hobby, but I doubt that I'll ever stop collecting T206's. Even if I get burned out chasing the virtually complete Monster, I'm sure I'll keep plugging away on a St. Louis front-back master set and keep trying to pick up some of favorites from the set.

http://imageevent.com/yawie99

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Back when i first started collecting t206s and i had about 10 of them,my goal was to get one of each player in the set. Anyone out there ever collect them that way and actually stop at that point?

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Posted By: DaveW

I had the advantage of having a collection forced on me. Consider it an inheritance. It had about 400 T206, mostly grade 3-5. The first card I ever bought was a duplicate of one that had a major crease. It was Cross, in a SGC 50 slab.

I've bought slabbed and raw, trimmed and stained. I bought cards I didn't need due to poor bookkeeping. Part of the game. I'm now missing only 6: Wagner, Plank, Magie, Doyle, and the two St. Louis rarities, Demmitt and O'Hara.

So, I consider myself done. "Filling" the holes with reprints doesn't cut it at all for me. Those cards are special, and will remain missing.

No other set has grabbed my interest, or money. I did spend a fair amount of money getting the missing 100+ from the set, and enjoyed it all the way.

Oddly enough, I've never sold any of my duplicates (there are about 100 from the original set), nor have I bought any other cards of any vintage.

It is a special set; it's not called the Monster for nothing.

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Posted By: barry arnold

I think that my response to McKinney's thread " How do i get started on a prewar
baseball collection?" may be apropros and helpful as an answer here as well.

My entry closes with the following,
And remember the Monster wants you to quit. But, it is only a chimera, a phantasm.
Never quit.

all the best,

barry

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Posted By: anthony

when i first started the t206 set, i never planned on getting the big 4, virtually impossible on my budget...i got as high as 125 or so and realized my budget was a lot smaller than i thought...so i sold all of them and started over...most of them were in vg-ex condition.

i am now attempting to go for just the hofer's in portrait version only when available (lower grades of 2-3s). i have reprints of the wagner and plank and those will have to do.

its still a challenge with all the compitition and trying to stay within a budget but including the 2 reprints i have 35 of 38 hofers.


btw- thanks to all the board members that have helped me this far

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Posted By: Dustan Hedlin

Why the fascination with the portraits? I am fairly new to T206's (I have 9 with #10 en route), but have never understood this. There are a few portraits that I really like (Johnson,Magee), but other than that I enjoy the action shots more. Maybe the portraits will grow on me in time, but for now I'd rather have an action shot if both versions are available.

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Posted By: Dave

Dustan I think it's a matter of preferance. Gives me a good idea what the players actually looked like as opposed to something like E91's which are ridicilious. Also the portraits for the most part are the more expensive of the two. So I'd just as soon get the portraits out of the way first in case prices go up even higher in the next few years. I'll move to the action shots after that though...

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Posted By: Judson Hamlin

John - I started by getting one of each major leaguer and some of the more notable minor and Sl'ers. That got me going for a few years. That's about when I bought Lipset's books, which really got my attention. Then I started shooting for the complete set (-big 4/6) and also started going for rare backs at the same time. Sisyphus sent me a sympathy card soon thereafter. (I'm at 506 now)

edited for spelling

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Posted By: T206Collector

"Do you guys mainly keep them raw or do you grade them all? To grade 520 cards would cost over $5200, which you could use for a nice card."

I recently took advantage of SGC's Set Registry Special -- if you submit 200+ cards, they only charge you $5 per card. Add that to the 300 I had already either bought graded or had graded over the past five years and -- voila! -- 500 SGC graded T206 cards.

And, SGC is running an even better $5/card special this month -- $5/card, 50-card minimum, $250 maximum value, 20-day service.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

John, I noticed that as I got up around 200 cards I started focusing on trying to get at least one card of each guy before expanding out. There are about as many major league cards as there are different players in the entire set.

I'd guessed I was at 506 or 507 earlier. One of the pillars of this board asked me which ones I lacked, and upon listing those I see I'm at 510. Only my Eldberfield Washington portrait is slabbed, and that is because I haven't gotten around to breaking him out yet. Some of the others I bought were slabbed, but they are now liberated. I agree with the observation that cardslabbing money can't be spent on cardbuying. Even if there's some promotion or special, when you send dollars to PSA or SGC you do not increase the number of cards in your collection. (Maybe you eventually do if you're slabbing to sell.)

I've considered a clause in my will that would provide for the disposition of my cards, with a requirement that any potentnial buyer who mentions grading companies and slabbing would be disqualified from buying.

Some time ago I laid out the Cubs cards on the scanner and postd that. Some guys downloaded that and use it for their desktop background. Would not have been as pretty with holders everywhere. So I agree with the beauty of seeing the cards spread out, raw. They can be spread out on a table by series and the evolution of the cards is visible. And speaking of that, I always wanted the cards, when listed alphabetically as in the Standard Catalog, for the cards to at least be listed chronologically when a player has multiple poses. This would usually result in the portraits being listed first. Wish they'd do that.

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Posted By: Ed McCollum

I bought a nice notebook and enough pages to hold all 525 cards. Then I printed up sheets of little cards the same size as the actual card that listed each player and card number according to the old Becket listing, with major leaguers, minor then southern leaguers. Cut them all out and placed them in the appropriate space in the notebook. Thought of these white slips of paper as just a placeholder until I got the real card to take it's place. And still have 342 of them in the book.

It also provided incentive to fill certain pages. The first page of the book is full (all 15 cards), which looks impressive until you see page two has only three cards.

Then filled the page with Demmitt, then O'Hara’s; it was a matter of surround the rarities with those that should be around them.

Bizarre, I know, but it keeps me going (slowly).

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Posted By: Scott T

When I started collectng T206's I knew that I would never complete the set unless I won the lottery. Some people write off the "Big 4", but in my opinion they are part of the set. (The only card I discount is the Ty Cobb - Ty Cobb back card.)



Scott

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Posted By: Jason L

I have started the T206 collecting with my team, the Cubs.

If I do any beyond that, I will go after it on a team by team basis, based upon my knowledge of the teams and characters on them...
although I could see myself chasing after the horizontals, as those have struck me as quite appealing.

great to hear everyone's thoughts on this thread...actually helpful in terms of "collecting strategies", etc....

Edited to add: yeah, thank you Frank - I have that Cubs montage!
I hope to be putting together one of my own soon - (when I get a scanner set up)...as I have started my foray into the Cubs Monster with vigor over the past 2 months...I am up to 11, I believe...half slabbed, half naked

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Posted By: Dave

It's also great you don't have to spend alot to get nice looking cards.

This one was $20


This one was $25


This one was $25