1960 and 1958 topps help

[Brent888]

I'm new to the board and want advise on the best places to start building 1960 and 1958 topps sets. I don't have a very big budget, and I would like to build my set with mostly non graded cards. I also don't want to buy fakes, any advise on how to tell if cards are authentic through pictures. I would appreciate any help that anyone has to offer.

Thanks

[swarmee]

You probably want to start by buying bulk lots of those sets on eBay or here on the Net54 Buy/Sell/Trade section, but first figure out what condition you want to collect: VG, EX (no creases, some corner wear), or NM, etc.
Once you have a few groups of each year, fill in the gaps or upgrade using COMC where you can see good quality front and back scans and select cards at the price and quality you want. You can then hold them on their site and once you have a bunch of them, you can ship them at your timing choice.
You might also be able to find a bunch at Sportlots, but with the hundreds of sellers on there, you'd have to pay shipping for each seller you want to buy from. You can save a little by having the sellers send to the Sportlots box, and then you can package up the entire group when you want and have Sportlots send them to your house.

[hcv123]

1) Buy from reputable sellers - on Ebay or otherwise
2) Take some time to get educated about what are some of the ways the unscrupulous alter cards - there are some great threads on the boards here about that
3) Handle a lot of cards - literally - by handling a lot of real ones, many of the bad alterations will stick out like a sore thumb.
4) When it comes to the pricier cards - invest in a black light, a loupe and a good ruler or caliper. Could also consider going graded for the pricier cards - far from a perfect solution as they have made plenty of mistakes, but a pretty large degree of assurance compared to a un/less educated opinion.