Buyback Franken-set: Vintage Run

Today's buyback franken-set post is vintage-heavy, with every one of the ten cards featured originally from 1969 or earlier.  Let's (hopefully) add some nice older buybacks to the binder here!

1969 Topps #135 - Tommy Davis

A smiling Tommy Davis kicks off today's post.  Davis was well past his days of winning NL batting titles here, but I'll gladly accept a Pilots buyback any day.  The binder was lacking a #135 buyback as well, so I'm glad to have this one even though it features a hat-less player.  Speaking of which...

1968 Topps #439 - Luman Harris

...there are so many cap-less photographs in the 1968 Topps set.  That fact was really hammered home as I processed through a few buybacks for this post.  Lum Harris here...

...finds some competition for the franken-set in the form of a '75 Ed Brinkman.

The hat-less player manager loses.

1968 Topps #272 - Ray Culp

A little better.  Still no cap to be seen, but at least it features a Red Sox player.

Enough to displace this '71 Tommy Helms?

Nope.

1968 Topps #407 - Gary Kolb

A truly awful card of Gary Kolb, who batted just over the Mendoza Line in his relatively short career.

Again we have a contest...

...and again the player with the hat stays in the binder.

1968 Topps #260 - Jim Wynn

When I said I prefer hats in my photos, I didn't mean this.  Jim Wynn, who was coming off his first All-Star selection in 1967, could crush a baseball.

This '88 Vince Coleman buyback is already in slot 260.  Hmm...power vs. speed...

Power wins.  As I type this up I actually don't like this choice in retrospect.  At all.  The good news is that it won't matter shortly.

1968 Topps #93 - Tony Cloninger

One last '68 for today, and it's a proper one too with a hat and no airbrushing.  Tony went 24-11 for the Braves in 1965, and once hit two grand slams in the same game!

Mike Phillips' '76 release was in slot 93 of the binder already.

He really can't compete against a pitcher who hit two grand slams in the same game though.

This one happened to fall on a page that I'd already completed.  You can see Mike Phillips in the upper right there.

Here's how it looks now, with Cloninger taking his place.  Not a bad page at all, though as I noted previously I need to do something about those back-to-back Sonny Sieberts.

1964 Topps #127 - Aubrey Gatewood/Dick Simpson

You can't see his name thanks to the buyback stamp, but the player on top is pitcher Aubrey Gatewood.  Aubrey made a total of 68 appearances, mostly in relief, over the course of four seasons.  Dick Simpson lasted seven seasons at the MLB level, and finished as a career .207 hitter.

Paul Lindblad and his blacked-out cap were previously holding down slot 127.

Not anymore though.

1967 Topps #75 - George Scott

Here's one that I'm really pumped about.  An awesome All-Star Rookie buyback of the man who racked up countless All-Star appearances and Gold Glove awards, and is a member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame.  It's a good thing slot 75 was empty, as this card would have obliterated anything in its path anyway.  It would take something really nice to displace George here from the binder, I expect this one to be around for a long time.

1961 Topps #119 - A's Big Armor

Here's another nice one I snatched up cheap many months ago now.  Like most collectors who are into vintage, I love the combo cards that Topps included in their '50s and '60s sets.  They're not the easiest cards to find in buyback format though, thus tend to demand a premium, so I was happy to grab this one for just a couple bucks on Sportlots.  Best of all, #119 is a new number for the project, so into the binder it goes.

1958 Topps #260 - Frank Malzone

Here's the last buyback for today, perhaps my favorite (though I could almost go with any of the final three).  I don't buy a lot of single buybacks on eBay.  Typically it's not worth the trade-off in shipping costs, considering most of the buybacks I've picked up for this project have cost dimes and nickels.  In this case, I simply couldn't resist though, and even with shipping I shelled out less than $5 for this beauty.

This allows me to right the wrong I committed earlier in the post when I chose this Jim Wynn card over Vince Coleman.

Ah, much better.

That was a successful grouping if you ask me.  The '68s were largely under-whelming, but the cards that did make the cut were very solid additions to the project.  With my next post I'll be crossing the threshold of 700 total buybacks in my collection and processed for this project.  Pretty crazy...

Franken-set Progress:  441/792 (55%)
"Rejected" Buybacks:  256
Total Buybacks in Collection: 697