You can pick up cloths for under 10 dollars and black ludlows also under 10 dollars certain ones will demand a premium unless you are patient then all will be inexpensive. I've been periodically picking up red ludlows for under 30 dollars. The ones that are hard to get are printing plates. Everyone says that they hate them however the majority of them sell for over 50 dollars. Also those autograph cards Those sell for a pretty penny also. (I would venture to guess because there are only 4 sets plates and 15 sets of autographs). I can' t remember how many sets of gold,cloth nod the ludlows there are.
Cloths have dropped to where you could buy many in the $6-10.00 range, but do you think you could get a full set starting from scratch now? i would be more inclined to find a set already assembled. Plus when you are purchasing individual cards over and over you get nickel & dimed by the postage, and that needs to be factored into the total cost.
I just did a search and there are 2 complete sets on ebay, one for $2,000.00 and the other for $2,500.00 (both dealers). That's $28.00 each for the $2,000.00 set, which to me is too high. If the average price has dropped to $10.00 each, a full set should be @ $750.00, no?