Questions for set builders

[Zach Wheat]

I am mainly a set collector. I have finished a number of pre-war and post-war sets. My general strategy is similar to others with a few tweaks.

1. Are there particular strategies you follow in building your sets?
Decide if you are going to complete a master set with variations or go for a set without variations. If you are a master set collector, you will probably learn more and discover variations others didn't notice. After that step, I buy lots in bulk and look to re-sell the duplicates. I have always tried to buy star cards or high # cards as early as possible.

2. Do you build multiple sets at once, or does that make it too difficult and you focus on one at a time?

I build a couple sets at the same time, usually one pre-war and another post-war. Keep your focus and know which key cards you need and at what price ranges for each grade.

3. Do you prefer all raw, all graded or a combo and why?

I prefer raw but the investment nature of the key cards and various stars has made it preferable to have key cards graded.

4. Finally, what is the best way to store sets (in-progress or completed) so that you can also enjoy seeing the cards?

I prefer to store in binders with cards in penny sleeves. However I have shifted to penny sleeves with top loaders, due to investment nature of the cards. I prefer top loaders over card savers because the bottom corners tend to get dinged when you put them in if you aren't careful. With binders it is easy to flip through the various pages and identify variations, etc.

Good luck!