[metroac]

Like many of us, I once had a large card collection, but sold it off -- in my case, in two large divestitures in 1997 and 2009. A few years later, though, I found that I missed collecting and wanted to get back in. I didn't want to collect what I'd collected before unless they were sets I really liked. I started with two sets that I thought were 1) small, 2) really beautiful, 3) didn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable, 4) didn't contain any real budget busters, and 5) that I hadn't collected before. They were the 1936 R312 Pastels and the '52-'55 Red Man.

I started with a "find" on eBay of about 30 1953's (with tabs) that had been pasted in an album and survived a fire (as evidenced by the charring around the edges). About half of them were Hall of Famers. I replaced all of them as I built my '53 set, but they're still some of my favorite cards (and they still smell of smoke).