My 1974 Topps Approach

[danx]

For the past 5-6 years, I have been working on a Topps run of the sets I initially collected as a kid (1973-1979). My normal set approach is to build out a raw set w as close to NM as I can afford and pick up about 10% of the cards in graded form as duplicates. I recently have been upgrading some of the raw cards in my completed sets: 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977 - - which tends to burn me out on the cost of buying NM singles.

So - when I decided over the weekend to have a crack at building the 1974 set, I decided to take a different approach for fun: build out a LOW GRADE set, and start with the original cards that I bought as a 7 year-old back in 1974. Going through my old rough cards was way more fun than I even imagined and putting together the base of a set without caring (too much) about quality was a blast. I know there are Mid-Grade collectors on here, but has anyone else tried anything similar to what I've started? I figure a few cheap large Lot Buys in lower grade should get me 90%+ of the way home. I have 39 PSA graded.

A few stats - I always assumed that I bought fairly evenly throughout the season, but these stats make me think I may have loaded up later:

I had 503 total cards:
- 316 unique cards for the base set of 660 (344 to go)
- 122 were dups (I had 12 triples and 5 quadruples of the same cards!)
- 65 were "Traded" - I'd say I had doubles or triples of 10+ Traded Cards
- only 1 Washington variation and 10 other San Diego cards
- 4 seriously mis-cut cards & an appropriate number of wax/gum stains

As a Cincinnati Reds fan, I always felt like they must limit the number of Reds in our market to get us to buy more. Out of the 438 base cards, I only had 12 Reds = 2.7% (vs. the expected 4.5% expected 30/660) - proving the conspiracy. Just kidding.

Anyway, I'll probably build out a NM raw set down the line - but maybe not - if this keeps being this much fun (and cheap), I may take a crack at some other sets, too...

Dan