I was feeling the same way about collecting cards (I prefer collecting flannels.) I gave a lot of thought to which set of my childhood might be fun to work on (the 1960s.)
My main problems were:
1. Expensive cards in the set, that I'd eventually need to pony up for if I wanted to complete the set. The Mantle for starters, then the rookies.
2. I couldn't see spending a lot for floating head rookies like Uecker (1962 T high number,) Rose (1963,) or half card rookies like Morgan (1965,) Carew and Seaver (1967,) Bench and Ryan (1968) and so on.
3. I would want cards that looked nice, but there's the trimming/doctoring issue.
All of these things just made the whole idea not fun, like the OP says.
Then I came up with a solution - the 1962 Post Cereal set. I remember, vaguely, getting panels of cards on the back of those cereal boxes and cutting them out. Free baseball cards! I have good memories of those days.
1. I've recently picked up 2 decent Mantles for $70 and $46. Easily the cheapest 1960s major set Mantles, and it's an attractive card too.
2. With 200 cards in the set, I don't think there are any rookies.
3. Trimming is no issue since they were supposed to be hand cut. And if you see the black borders of the cards, you know they haven't been "over-trimmed."
I ordered the definitive book on 1962 Post baseball from Dan Mabey, and plan to make a study of the set. Meanwhile, after about 2 weeks of collecting these, I've gotten past the halfway point for about $500. So, the set should be easy to complete for less than the cost of a mid-grade floating head '63 Rose.
It's a lot of fun to not be constricted by grading/trimming issues, high prices, chasing rookie cards, etc. There are some minor challenges with a handful of short prints, but they are all available and can be had in the $50 range or much less. Mabey's book tells which cards were on which cereal boxes, and that's fun to know.
So, not counting the occasional T202 purchase, I'm back into card collecting again, and having a lot of fun with it.
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