What constitutes a full set?

[Drewk86a]

Last year I noticed I had a lot of 97-98 Ultra Gold Medallion cards and decided to try to put together the entire Gold Medallion set. To date I am about 3 base cards and 14 RCs away from completing the set.

Then a thought ocurred to me... Would this be considered a complete set without all of the redemption RCs?

The base set runs 1 - 200. The RCs are 201 - 250, and the redemptions are 251 - 271. Must I gather all 20 rookie redemptions gold medallions in order to have the "full" set?

[andrewhoya]

In my opinion, yes.

[Phoenix]

Would this be considered a complete set without all of the redemption RCs? NO

Must I gather all 20 rookie redemptions gold medallions in order to have the "full" set? YES

Full set means all the cards, it's that simple.

[centrehice]

Rookie Redemptions are not included in any sets I've ever put together.

Rookie Redemptions are something that manifested themselves in SPx in the 01-02 Issue. They were not around before then. You'd probably have arguments from both sides.

Redemptions like SP's, are a marketing scheme by the manufacturers to empty your wallet. They extend sets by offering parallels and SP's and Redemptions and make it nearly impoosible, so that you keep on spending your money to complete them.

[andrewconnors9]

Complete what you think is a set. If its the base and regular rookies in your mind, then thats your set

[Johnsson]

A set to me is the numbered cards from #1 to #X, including rookies, inserts, redemptions and low-numbered autos.

A complete set of 1997-98 Gold Medallions would be all cards from 1 to 271 then.

Sets have become more and more advanced, with lots of short-printed cards and numerable subsets, which I think have scared away lots of collectors.

Example:

SPx 2010-11:

Base ----------- 1-100 ------- Base-set
Legends -------- 101-115
Rookies --------- 116-155
Rookie Jerseys -- 156-165
ARJ Level 2 ----- 166-191
ARJ Level 1------ 192-197 ----- Base-set + rookies
Flashback Fabrics 198-227
FF Auto--------- 228-257 ---- Complete set

Only 499 complete sets exists, and a set would cost a minimum of ~$2-$3k to put together via ebay.

[Drewk86a]

Sets have become more and more advanced, with lots of short-printed cards and numerable subsets, which I think have scared away lots of collectors.

If I understand what you're saying - The number of complete sets possible is limited by the print run of the shortest printed card?

For example: Some of the rookie cards in UD Ice are #'d to 99. Then it is only possible to have 99 complete sets because any other "sets" would be lacking the SSP rookies?

[ginx86]

Yeah I think that's what he means and I think it could be argued that that would be the complete set but I think most in the hobby look at it a little more leniently.

I agree with andrewconnors9, if you're happy with the base set and regular rookies as a complete set then that's what you should collect.

[Johnsson]

If I understand what you're saying - The number of complete sets possible is limited by the print run of the shortest printed card?

The manufacturer decides which cards should be in the main set, and which will be inserts or parallels. The main set is listed in a range from 1 to X, where X is the last card in the main set. They usually have the hardest cards to collect in the end, so collectors can have a break point or like that.

If you search the inventory, you'll see that it lists the SPx set as a set from 1 to 257, even though it has eight different subsets: https://www.sportscardforum.com/scf/i...set/139055/spx

For example: Some of the rookie cards in UD Ice are #'d to 99. Then it is only possible to have 99 complete sets because any other "sets" would be lacking the SSP rookies?

Correct, the same is true for both the Cup and Ultimate. Sometimes a rookie-card has more total number of printed parallels out there than the number of "true" rookie cards. I'm not very good at explaining what this means, but I'll give you an example:

Phil Kessel The Cup 2006-07
-"True" Rookies Card numbered to #99
The card have the following parallels
-Gold numbered to #81 (his jersey-number)
-Platinum numbered to #25
-A bunch of 1 of 1's
A total of 100+ parallels compared to 99 "true" rookie-cards.

It's actually rarer to have a "true rookie-card" of him than a parallel of it, if you understand what I mean, which explains why the Gold Tavares-rookie costs about half the total of a true Tavares Cup-rookie.