Buyback Franken-set: Celebrating 800 with The Bird!

My last buyback post took me to an even 800 buybacks in my collection that have been inventoried and processed for the franken-set project thus far.  Since that feels like a significant milestone, I decided that in my next post I'd celebrate with a significant buyback.  Well, here it is!

1977 Topps #7 - ERA Leaders (Mark Fidrych & John Denny)

Topps introduced the concept of different color foil buyback stamps in 2016, with each color signifying a level of "rarity".  I prefer the first couple of years of the program where all buybacks were created equal, but anyway in 2016 the Gold Foil buybacks were "1/1s".  The franken-set binder is already home to a sweet Nolan Ryan 1/1, and this 1977 Topps ERA Leaders card becomes my second.

The obvious draw for me here was the chance to get Mark "The Bird" Fidrych incorporated into the project.  As most fans know, he's one of the more colorful personalities from the '70s, and outside of this here card I've personally never encountered any other Fidrych buybacks to date.

This card was kicking around my eBay watch list for well over a year.  The seller was asking an unrealistic Buy-It-Now price, but was at least accepting offers.  After a respectable offer or two were turned down without so much as a counter offer I kind of forgot about the card and moved on to other things.  Well, this summer when we took our vacation to Portugal I brought the fantastic book Big Hair and Plastic Grass along as reading material.  The passages on Fidrych got me thinking back to this card, and I found it was still on eBay.  I tossed out an offer right there on my phone sitting by the pool (which may or may not have been alcohol-influenced) for less than the cost of a blaster (and less than my previous offers that were rejected many months ago), and to my surprise it was accepted.  1/1 secured!

I just sort of assumed that this one was a lock for the franken-set when I picked it up, I mean how could just my second 1/1 overall, featuring a personality as captivating as The Bird, possibly lose?

Well, while I was waiting for the right time to debut the Fidrych for this project, I picked up a small batch of 1990 Topps buybacks that included this Rickey Henderson Record Breaker card, also a card #7.  This is a much tougher choice for me than it might be for the average collector, due to the fact that I'm especially fond of 1990 Topps as it was the first set I collected as a kid.

Decisions, decisions...

In the end, I had to go with the Fidrych (and not to be forgotten John Denny!) card.  It's simply too great a buyback to leave out of the binder.  Besides, I've pretty much decided that I'm insane enough to attempt the 792-card 1990 Topps set in buyback format, so that frees Rickey up for that particular project.  A win/win as far as my collection goes!

I'm still having a ton of fun with this obscure project, and have many great buybacks still to be featured here in the coming months.  Up next is yet another batch of ten from my friend Dimebox Nick.  Until then, thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet!

Franken-set Progress:  480/792 (60%)
"Rejected" Buybacks:  321
Total Buybacks in Collection: 801