Thanks for sharing your experiences, albatross7979. I love the attention to detail and your trials and tribulations on EBay. I have experienced many of the same experiences in my quest to complete the '57 set. A lot of people are building older sets right now. You're seeing lots of comp and so am I as I assemble the last few tough commons of the '57 set. The prices for commons have really jumped on '57s in the last few months, along wit the stars. I agree with the poster who said you might want to go after some of the most expensive cards sooner rather than later. Once you get that Mantle, Mays, etc, your commitment level will go up. Hard to know for certain if this is a short term bubble for vintage, so you might get paid off if you wait, if the economy takes a turn for the worse prices will come down. But there's reason to think 50s vintage is going to be in high demand for the long haul. People love collecting baseball cards, and being stuck at home with fewer entertainment options seems to be driving things up.
Interesting that Harvey Haddix is a tough card in the '53 set. I'm having a really tough time finding his 57 card, which is the first # of series 4 and supposedly a DP. It's not cheap.
Curious to see how your goals evolve as you keep building. Sounds like you are in it for the long haul, which is great. I wonder if your PSA gambit will work. Those cards that don't meet your standards for 5s, will still cost $ to grade and have limited resale value. I totally identify with your challenges of buying raw. More often than not the card does not live up to the standard applied by the seller. Usually this comes in the form of undisclosed surface blemishes. Find a few good, lower profile sellers and when you get quality from them, make them your go-to guys (and gals). That's what I have done, but yeah buying raw on line is tough and as rat60 said, with 53s you also have to worry about corner coloring.
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