[53toppscollector]

I previously put together a near complete set of 1953 Topps graded PSA 5-7. I was within 10 cards or so of finishing. The cards were in 2 of those big BCW cardboard boxes, and I honestly never ever looked at the cards after I received them and put the slab in the perfect fit sleeves. They just went into the box and sat there.

When I got very close to completion of the set, I realized that I had spent exponentially more time looking through my Excel file, remembering what cards I needed, what grades things were in, what I had paid for them, than I had actually looking through my set and enjoying it. That was kind of the tipping point and why I ended up selling the set over 6 months or so. When I turned to T206, I decided that if I was going to invest the time and resources into collecting another big set, I needed to actually get more enjoyment out of the cards themselves, and a binder would be the only way for me to do that. That was easier for me to do because I decided I was going to focus on lower grade sets and sub-sets of T206.

Looking back on it, it was the best decision I've made. I look through my T206 binder multiple times a week, every week. When a new card comes in, I flip through the binder pages until I get to the spot with the paper placeholder slip, then I insert the new card into its page, and then I continue flipping through the rest of the pages.

If my focus was collecting the set in PSA 6 or higher, or I had cards worth $20k+, then I would probably leave them in the graded slabs. Buying lower grade examples removes this worry for me at this point.