I love watching the show Storage Wars. One of my dreams is to win a storage locker auction and find a whole bunch of 1975 Topps cards in the locker. There's just two things wrong with that dream:
- There aren't any storage locker auctions in Australia. Here, if you don't pay your bill, the companies just open up the locker themselves, take all the good stuff and sell it, and throw the rest away. Which I suppose is fair enough.
- Even if there were storage locker auctions here, I highly doubt any lockers would contain any 1975 Topps cards.
However, I have a new friend named Jeff. Jeff is a storage auction enthusiast who happened to come across some 1975 Topps cards in a locker he bought. 422 of them, in fact. So Jeff put the lot on eBay, where I was able to snag it for right around 42 bucks. In other words, I got all those cards for the 10-cents-a-card benchmark I think is fair.
The cards arrived yesterday, and so far I have resisted the urge to bust out all of them in a hours-long 1975 Topps cataloguing and filing orgy. I've only gone through a third instead. Here are two highlights.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the best card in 1975 Topps. Not Robin Yount, or George Brett, or either of the Hank Aarons. Why is this Herb Washington card the best? Check out his position.
Now check out the back. Even his stat lines are different, adjusted to reflect his unique position in baseball history.
Finally, here is a "Joy of a Completed Page" - my first completed page of '75 Topps.
More to come as I go through the second lot of my "Storage Wars" cards tonight.
Here's my first filled Series 2 binder page. I completed four of them tonight. Only 33 more to go...
There was a package waiting for me at the post office on Wednesday, from Don Wicked Ortega. It wasn't an envelope, it was a bubble mailer. There were a lot of cards inside, and once I get all the scans done I'll write up a proper trade post.
Alfredo included about 30 A Piece of History cards, which put a serious dent in my want list. The cards also allowed me to complete my first three binder sheets from the set. Here's the cool thing about this:
There was one page of stars...
one page of rookies...
and one page of historical events.
There was much, much more in the package besides these cards, and a more complete trade post is forthcoming. But I just had to show off my latest completed pages, especially because of the variety involved.
First, some news. There won't been any posts for the next couple of days. It's a long weekend here in Australia and we're having a well-deserved weekend away. It's too late for me to set up some auto-posts so there won't be any more additions to the site until Sunday.
That said, I did open another pack (no. 7) of Topps 2011 and have finally completed a few binder pages (four, to be exact). The following sheet wasn't the best, but it was the first:
And now, the card backs (check to magnify):
As always, thanks for reading. I'll see you on Sunday!
The first page of 2008 Masterpieces that I've completed. One Hall-of-Famer, two sure-fire future HOFers, and a fourth person who will certainly be heading to Cooperstown if he keeps pitching the way he has in his first four seasons.
I love seeing Tony Gwynn in his 80's-style Padres uniform. Also, how skinny he looks. Poor Luke Hochevar sticks out like a sore thumb. I wonder why Upper Deck was so desperate to work him in to all the 2008 sets? He has a card in the Heroes set as well - and it's the exact same picture! It looks like the headshot that they make everybody take in spring training so they can use it in the media guide.
By the way, Ichiro was the last card I needed to finish off this page.
Yes, it's more Strasburg Money. In this case, I was able to buy a lot of Legendary Lineage cards that have helped me put a big dent in my collection. Now I have not just one, but two completed pages, both from Series 1:
This is the first page, the first nine cards in the set. Of the two, it's the one I like better. Why? Have a look at the top-left-hand corner. There's your answer. It makes up for the preponderance of Yankees in the bottom right.
Here's page two (cards LL10-LL18). Highlights include Cal Ripken, Johnny Bench, and that card right in the middle. Warren Freakin' Spahn.
I love the Legendary Lineage series. It's one of the two insert sets from 2010 that I'm collecting (the Yo Momma cards are the other). In both cases, the sets are ones that tie in the history of the game with today's baseball. Of course, some of the selections are questionable and the links tenuous at best (Grady Sizemore and Tris Speaker, anyone?). But I like the simple design of the cards, and they have featured some of my absolute all-time favorite players. Overall, it's been a really enjoyable set to collect, read and display.
In particular, I'd like to draw your attention to the top left corner, cards #1 and #2 in the set. They are, of course, Prince Fielder and Buster Posey, and they were the two cards I needed to complete the page. They came courtesy of
Night Owl along with a bunch of other cards, which I will devote a full post to as soon as I can find the time.
However, Prince and Buster didn't just finish the page. In fact, along with eight other cards Owlie sent, they completed my 2010 Topps series 1 set. This makes the first set that I have ever completed entirely through collecting. A personal milestone that I am quite happy about.
As I said, there were a bunch of other cards in the bubble envelope. I have scanned them, and even have some ancedotes, snarky comments and a story that makes me look like a complete buffoon all ready to go. I only need the time to type it all out. Such is life.
Before I go, here's the backs of those cards:
In my collection, it's recorded as Page 09T2-29. One White Sox player, one A's player, three rookie cards, a manager, a nice action shot, two horizontal cards, and two perennial all-stars. Capped off in the middle with a player who was such a key figure for the Reds for many years, and the subject of one of the two baseball bobblehead dolls I have. A somewhat interesting page, but when it comes down to it, nothing terribly special.
Except that this is the first completed page that I have constructed since I got back into the hobby. It's cards 583-591 in the '09 Topps Series 2 set, and, to me, it's exciting. Even when I was a kid, I never tried to build sets. I didn't have the patience, and it was just easier to buy (or rather, get as a Christmas gift) the factory set at the end of the year. 2009 Series 2 is actually my first serious attempt at set building, and this page is my first accomplishment. Just thought I'd take a moment to share.
