Couple of Old Hanks

Just a quick post tonight with a couple of old Hank Aaron cards that I never got around to posting when I originally acquired...

First up, the 1971 NL RBI Leaders card from the 1972 Topps set.  Joe Torre paced the league in RBI in 1971, and thanks to his induction into Cooperstown as a manager we've got a trio of HOFers gracing this card.  Almost 20 years into his career, and Hammerin' Hank was still raking the ball as well as anyone in the league at this stage.

I landed this one all the way back in April of 2008.  I grabbed it just because Hank Aaron has been a favorite of mine since childhood, and it was relatively cheap for a very clean, graded copy (under $10).  I could see myself unloading this one though in the future, as I'm considering a somewhat massive sale of some parts of my collection in the next couple of months to thin things out and raise some funds.

The other Hank Aaron I have for tonight though, I have no plans to part with!  A legendary player from a legendary set.  I'd love to pick up Hank's entire run of playing-era Topps flagship singles, or at least the entire run except his rookie, and then cross that bridge when I come to it.  I've got at least a handful of them, and this '72 is every bit as nice as any of the others.

Even if I went really crazy and thinned my collection down to about 10% of current size, I'd hang onto this one and my few other graded Aaron Topps flagship cards.  I'm glad it finally gets a moment to shine on the blog here.  I'm trying to get better about not waiting so long to show some of my better pieces.  As an example of just how bad I can be with that, I scored this card all the way back in May of 2007, months before I even typed the first few words that would become this blog!

I'm planning an entire future post about sports cards as, in some very particular circumstances, investments.  When I get around to that I could certainly use this card as an example.  I paid $70 for it back in 2007, and 12 years later based on recent eBay sales I'd have no trouble unloading it for easily twice that amount, if not more.  A better than 100% increase in twelve years isn't too shabby if you ask me.

That's all I've got for tonight, thanks for swinging by and checking out a couple of my finer Aarons!