Because I am an unrepentant golf club whore I just bought a bunch of clubs on eBay. I used a search of "hickory -callaway" to sort out the Callaway Hickory Sticks, which are actually steel shafts inside a hickory exterior.
Over time I accumulated enough to put together enough clubs for a "big" set of 14 clubs or probably two or three shorter sets. Plus i have quite a few spares. The irons turned out to be easier than woods, in fact the woods have been fairly problematic. I think I bought 10 or so to get enough to play with.
The one thing I learned is that a lot of them have been cut off over the years and the owners don't necessarily realize it.
Since I have been fooling around with club repair since the 1970s, I have most of the skills I needed to work on them myself. Things like rewhipping woods, reattaching heads, etc aren't really all the tough. I cracked a couple of shafts and figured out that buying left-handed clubs and salvaging the shafts worked, as did gluing them with polyurethane glue and wrapping them with whipping. The one thing I learned is that a lot of them have been cut off over the years and the owners don't necessarily realize it.
I came up with a solution for loose iron heads that doesn't require any tools and so far (4-5 years) has kept the heads tight. I saw a glue for loose furniture spindles that claimed to expand the wood and lock it in, that appeared to be cyanocrylate so I got out a bottle of super glue and put a drop onto the joint between the head and shaft.
It sucked it right in, so I kept putting it in until no more would go. Then I wiggled the head to "pump" the glue further down and repeated until it wouldn't take any more. The glue appears to have made the wood swell and it locked it in place.
I have regripped a few with some leather grip straps that I had laying around from other clubs, but they are too short, so I have been working on alternatives. One thing I do is try to get them as clean as possible. I am sure that the grips weren't all black and shiny when they were built. I have actually aggressively scrubbed a few and discovered that they were originally red.
I have saved a few by cleaning and putting on some Leather Therapy Restorer and Conditioner. For some really bad grips, I found that sanding the glaze off with coarse sandpaper then applying Leather Therapy works great.
Finally, I just bought part of a cowhide from a Tandy Leather store in Albuquerque and plan to cut some strips to wrap on rough side out.
BTW- I don't feel bad about using 14 clubs, as this is the replica set of Jones' Grand Slam set
