It wasn't long ago that many collectors thought 
it completely wrong to split up sketch sets! I 
know some collectors who stopped shopping at some 
sites because the dealer(s) in question sold 
pages of genga sets separately.

But now that cels are gone, dealers, and even 
private collectors, seem to have moved to selling 
sketches the way cels of the same sequence would 
have been sold. That is to say: separately.

I have some very complete sketch sets, and still 
lean towards thinking that sketch sets shouldn't 
be broken up. But this feeling comes from a time 
when one person *could* have the entire sketch 
set, and a whole bunch of other people could 
still have a cel from the scene in question.

In the past, sketches really seem to have been 
collected secondary to cels. They were a nice 
*add-on* to a cel collection. Now that sketches 
are all we have, they've moved out of the realm 
of being just a nicety or icing on the cake. They 
now ARE the cake, and everyone wants a piece, so 
there's much more demand to split the sets up. If 
nothing else, splitting the sets up allows there 
to be more to go around.

As a group of collectors, we're in the middle of 
a changing time. . . Both in the items available 
to us, and in our attitudes toward how we collect 
those items. I've personally come to rest at the 
point where I don't mind buying a single sketch 
alone, but when I have a whole set, I still can't 
bring myself to split it up.

As for how other collectors will feel, I don't 
feel guilty about *not* splitting up complete 
sketch sets. I don't consider it hoarding or 
greedy, it's simply how I've chosen to collect. 
You'll quickly find that everyone has different 
ideas about what constitutes hoarding. I've 
gotten some nasty e-mails in the past regarding 
the number of cels of Clary that I have, saying 
that I'm being greedy by keeping so many. The 
same has been mailed to me about my Psychic Force 
collection. In both cases, we're not even talking 
about whole sequences!

I do have one almost complete cel sequence from 
YuYu Hakusho, and a complete cut scene of cels 
from Tenshi ni Narumon. Again, I don't consider 
it hoarding to keep them. But it addresses your 
question of: Would I complete the Hakusho cel 
sequence if I found the couple missing cels from 
it? Probably I would. But only really because 
that and the other are fun and interesting for me 
by being unique in my collection. (Unique meaning 
that they are the only complete sequences I have, 
*not* simply that no one else has a cel from 
those sequences -- even though the latter is true 
by default.) I wouldn't do that for everything, 
because there are other things I want to buy. Even
if I had unlimited funds, I wouldn't do it simply 
from the perspective of having to store it all.

Only you can decide how you spend your money. ^_^ 
But you do have to keep in mind that you can buy 
whatever you want that is for sale. . . but if 
you do decide to monopoloize on a very popular 
sequence (cels or sketches), there *will* be many 
people who will be unhappy about it. If you do 
that repeatedly, it's very possible for irritation
to grow about it among other collectors. Even 
those that never say anything to you about it 
might express their disapproval in "quiet" ways, 
like being unwilling to trade to you, bidding 
harder against you in auctions, or not letting 
you know when they see something you're looking 
for posted for sale.

In the end, my biases aside, I generally consider 
it better to share. I prefer to see ten happy 
people instead of just one. ^_^  And if you only 
collect sets, you'll never know the joy of having 
cel siblings! ^_~

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac