General Forum

For the second time in as many days here, I've seen a reference to someone starting in on a second set after they already have one complete set.

Um...why? Is it just because you so enjoy the chase? But then, why not chase something else? Is it just a completionist compulsion? Is it to sell the whole set to someone?

Back in the late 80s, I admit I briefly considered trying to complete a second set or two when I had 60-70% of a second one. But then I thought, No, this is dumb. I have limited resources of time and money. I'll work on sets I haven't completed.

So I'm just curious. I'm always trying to understand different mindsets and ways of collecting....

Happy collecting.

v3

I put together multiple sets just simply because I had the volume of cards, then I could use them as trade bait (or sell them).

I still have a couple partials around here and I wound up putting together about 5 or 6 1987 Topps baseball sets - again, just because I opened enough packs to get that many sets (I probably opened enough to put together 10 sets, but distribution).

The older sets were kind of set aside in hopes of complete sets being worth something. It's really kind of scary how it's usuall better (money wise) to break a set and sell the cards individually than it is to sell the set as a whole.

Glad my wife's uncle did just that - I was able to back fill in some 1970s sets a couple years back where he had extras (1973-1977). He had a partial 1972, which is also now mine. I'm working to complete it (and to replace the badly damaged cards).

Hey v3, Yes back in the day, I used to try completing multi sets only because I had so many cards. Todays collecting makes that almost impossible. So what do you do with the extra sets...try and sell or trade them, I guess? 

That's why today I have plenty of extra sets that I can't even sell or trade for pittance. So let's test the theory, I have the following BB sets for real cheap, anybody interested in?:

How about, 1987, 1988, 1989 Topps or 1988, 1989, 1990 Donruss or 1990 UD, how about 1988, 1990 Score? Studio? Leaf? Fleer? Traded or Updates and the list goes on......v3 just follow the trail. ~BOB~

OOO byw Football, Basketball, and Hockey Sets are even tougher to move on!

I have 3 factory sets of 1989 Fleer because my dad bought them, thinking they were all different years. Haven’t had a desire to try and sell them, so I have kept them.

In the early 90s I collected all sports and work to complete each of the flagship sets but it was always just one set of each. In the early 2000s when SPs lower serial numbered cards became more common I moved away from set building and gave it up about 4-5 years ago. I don't think I would have ever considered building a second set unless I was close to completing a second set after buying multiple boxes.

I have a set of duplicates (and a set of triplicates) set aside of the cards in my Ted Musgrave PC.  It started out as a list of traders and a set that I wanted to have signed TTM.  Over the years I lost interest in accumulating additional TTM Autographs, and its rare that I find someone who has cards from my want list to trade, so those sets have turned into a type of 'self insurance'.  The second set of cards is cheaper to accumulate than the premiums would be to insure the first.

-Tom

I collect a second set, but it is only of my favorite team, The Detroit Tigers. I actually just began this practice. I had pulled all the Tigers from my complete sets in notebooks, to create a notebook of just Topps Tigers. As I was going through my doubles and listing them in the data base, I noticed I had many full team sets, so, I decided to plug them back in the complete sets notebook. I probably will do the same for the Detroit Lions. 

if i cracked enough to get a first set and enough to almost complete a second set, i just bought the remaining and sold it to make my money back or traded it off. i think for the '15 or '16 topps chrome baseball, i almost had enough for 3 sets, just been slowing trading them off but still have a bunch

I can't fathom wanting two of any card.  I've been unloading a few doubles here and there, to members, just trying to give myself room to walk around in the card room.  I kind of lost focus for a while (you guys don't know how close I really came to just quitting collecting in 2017) but now I have a better plan for how I want to collect, so I need to start looking at some want lists again.

I don't...but I can see why it would be helpful. There is one key though- Don't store them in the same place! - When I had a flood in 2015, I was able to replace about 15 cards out of my duplicate stash. I still have more than 100 that need to be replaced, but it was a good thing to be able to just go to my duplicates, sort them by set, and find some I needed again after having them in the past. And I have about 20,000 duplicates waiting to be checked, that I acquired in the 90s-2003.

It's part of the reason why I have not added anything to my tradelist here since late 2014 or 2015, for the most part. Several of the cards I was able to replace were on my tradelist here, and if somebody had requested them, I would not have been able to replace them. I am not planning to add anything else to the list until I finish scanning my collection and can then check them to see which version is in better shape.