Tag: budget

T206 Budget Series: If You Had $500 To Spend (3/4)

In last week’s article, I wrote about what I would do if I was starting a T206 collection with $100.  Today, we’ll take a look at the same scenario, but this time with $500.  If you read the first two, you know that I’ve settled on a grade range of right about GOOD. If you want to collect higher or lower grades, just adjust the numbers up or down a little and use the same general approach.  Last week, I broke it up into two different sections for raw cards v.s. graded cards.  The reason is that with a budget of $100, it makes a pretty big difference in terms of how far your money will go.  With $500, I don’t think it makes as big of a difference, so for this one, I won’t distinguish between graded or raw cards.

Here are three different ways that I might approach starting a T206 collection with $500:

Start with one major centerpiece Hall of Famer:

Making a big splash can be a fun way to kick off your collection.  There are a bunch of different ways you could go.  A nice lower grade Johnson, Mathewson, Speaker, or Young would fit the bill.  A nicer (Vg-Ex or so) copy of Eddie Collins, Keeler, Lajoie, or Tinker would also be a great option.

Buy a few Hall of Famers:

$500 can also get you a group of Hall of Famers.  You could specifically target certain players, or just be patient and wait for some nice deals to come along.  Another option would be to knock out all the poses of a given player.  You could buy both Joss poses, both Keeler or Waddell poses, or all three Bender or Chance poses.

Start with a big group of commons:

Putting the entire amount toward a stack of commons is also a nice way to get started and build some momentum.  $500 should get you somewhere between 20 and 30 cards depending on condition and whether you’re buying raw or graded.

Mix and Match

Of course, you can also add some Hall of Famers, and some commons.  This method has some appeal because it allows you to get one or two big name players, but also assemble a nice stack of cards.

Be an opportunist

This approach focuses less on which cards you’d ideally like to buy and more on which cards come to market.  If you’re patient, and don’t have a strong preference for any of the above strategies, this method can build your collection faster because you’ll be finding bargains you otherwise might have missed.  If you prefer to start with just Hall of Famers, or just players from a certain team or city, then obviously this approach won’t work for you, but it’s something to consider for most people.

Among the above options, my preference would be to tackle a small group of Hall of Famers first.  I still remember the feeling of awe I had when I bought my first few T206 Hall of Famers.  It’s hard to describe the feeling of flipping through your first handful of T206 Hall of Famers.  While commons are extremely cool in their own right, there’s just something special about holding 100 year-old cards of the legendary players I read about as a kid.

In practice, most people will probably go with a mixture of these approaches.  It’s good to plan out how you’d like to attack the set, but when you start shopping, you can only buy the cards that are actually available at the time.  Also, in practice, people don’t usually start with a $500 chuck on money to spend.  Usually it’s $40 here, $160 there, take a little from this paycheck, etc.  All that being said, I think it’s smart to spend some time thinking about how you’d ideally like to build your collection before you get started.

T206 Budget Series: If You Had $100 To Spend (2/4)

 

The first decision you’ll need to make is what condition you’d like your cards to be in, which I alluded to in Part 1.  The main consideration in choosing a condition range is how much of a budget you’re going to allocate to your T206 collection.  If you have a very large budget, you can afford to collect mid and high grades.  If you’re like most of us, your budget will be more modest, and lower grades will make more sense.

For the purposes of this series of articles, I’m going to focus on lower grades, in the Fair-to-VG range.  The reason for this is twofold.  For one thing, in my experience, most people that decide to start collecting T206s begin with lower grade cards.  It makes sense to test the waters when you’re trying something new, and lower grade cards are a great place to start.  Secondly, these articles would be a lot less helpful if I used mid-grades as our benchmark.  This article would just be about buying one PSA common for example.

If You’re Starting with Raw T206s:

Buy one Hall of Famer and two nice looking commons:

I would start by targeting a nice looking George Davis, Vic Willis, or Fred Clarke.  These Hall of Famers are under-valued in my opinion, and offer a great bang for the buck.  With some patience, you should be able to find one for $60 or less.  Then I’d go get a couple nice looking lower grade commons as well.

Buy four nice looking commons in GD+/VG condition:

These days a GD/VG T206 common can be had for $25-30.  I would imagine $100 would buy a nice group of 4 pretty easily.  As I mentioned in the first installment of this series, I think it’s smart to buy some raw T206s as soon as you can.  Take them out of their top-loader or card saver and examine them closely.  Feel the paper, look at how the ink sits on the paper, notice how a wrinkle or crease looks on an authentic T206, etc.  This next bit of advice may seem odd, but you should also smell your raw cards.  They tend to have a distinct old and musty smell.  All of these things will help you get comfortable with handling T206s.  At some point in the future it will pay off when you have a chance to buy a raw T206 (or more often a group of raw T206s) at a good price and you have the confidence to pull the trigger because you feel confident the card is legit.

 

If You’re Starting with Graded T206s:

Buy one Hall of Famer in a “1.5”, “2”, or “2.5” graded holder:

When buying graded cards, your money won’t go quite as far as it does when buying raw, so I would probably just try and spend the entire $100 on a single nice looking Hall of Famer that can be the centerpiece to your new collection.  The players mentioned above should be available in a “2.5” or “3” if you spend a little time looking.  Below is a list of Hall of Famers that are typically available in a graded “2” at $100 or less:

  • Beckley
  • Bender
  • Bresnahan
  • Chance (Yellow Portrait)
  • Clarke
  • Collins, Jimmy
  • Davis
  • Duffy
  • Flick
  • Griffith
  • Huggins
  • Jennings
  • Kelley
  • Marquard
  • McGinnity
  • McGraw (Finger in Air and Glove at Hip)
  • Wallace
  • Willis

Here is a handy checklist of the Hall of Famers in the T206 set, courtesy of T206resource.com:

T206 Hall of Fame Checklist

Buy three graded commons:

If you spend a little time looking, you can find three nice graded commons in the GOOD/VG range for $100 or less.  Buying a group from a forum or Facebook group is probably the most efficient option as it will allow you to save on shipping charges, which is always nice when you’re trying to build a T206 collection on a budget.