Like any other T206 collector, I love a good back run. They’re a fun, challenging way to add some variety to a collection. However, there are a few aspects of working on a back run that can be make it tough to see the project through to completion: Collectors with large budgets will often target a very tough 350-460 Series or Super Print subject as their pose of choice. Money won’t be an object, but availability certainly will. Waiting over a decade for your specific pose to show up with Drum or Broad Leaf 460 back seems like it would really put the damper on the fun of working on a back run.
For a smaller budget collector like myself, there are other potential roadblocks to consider. First, tying up a significant amount of money into multiple cards of one player can be hard to justify at times when other desirable cards come to market. I’ve started a few back runs that never reached completion because I sold one or more of the cards in order to pay for a different T206 that I wanted more. The longer it takes to complete the back run, the more chances you’ll have to decide you might rather have something else than complete the project.
The other problem has to do with the project itself. A smaller budget collector is probably going to choose a 150-350 Series subject for their back run simply as a matter of finances. You could also target a 350 Series player who doesn’t have a Drum, but then you’re still going to need a Carolina Brights and/or a Broad Leaf 350 which are not cheap. A 150-350 Series back run makes the most sense, but it can be a little mundane. I recently abandoned a Dode Criss back run while lacking only the Sweet Caporal 150 Factory 25 because I had just lost interest. Granted, Criss is one of the easiest 150-350 back runs because their is no Hindu or EPDG to track down. However the largest back runs from the 150-350 Series (Bresnahan Portrait or Johnson Portrait for example) only have 12 front/back combos, and 7 of them are either Piedmont or Sweet Caporal backs. Needing that many common backs* can get boring, at least it has to me on a few occasions. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have completed such a project without giving up at some point, but I know of many such back runs that have never been seen through to completion.
Once I realized that I wasn’t likely to complete a back run anytime soon, I came up with a different way of looking at back collecting. I would much rather have 12 different mid-tier front/back combos than 12 different backs of the same pose. With that in mind, I started to try to acquire the scarcest back (or the scarcest back I could afford) or each pose for a certain player. Obviously this only makes sense for players who have multiple poses in the T206 set, but thankfully there are plenty of them.
The Bender run below features his toughest Portrait, second scarcest With Trees (Broad Leaf 350 is harder to find), and the tough Cycle 460 No Trees (there are a few tougher front/back combos with for this pose, but I can’t afford most of them).
The Bender run was on the expensive side, but this can also be a fun way to collect on a budget. This Mullin run below cost me around $400 to complete. None of these are the very scarcest back for the pose, but the Cycles are pretty hard to find.
Gallery:
*Not all Sweet Caporal backs are easy to find, but it can be hard to know which ones are tougher to find because most collectors aren’t interested in the different Factory Numbers, and Pop Report numbers are not helpful.