Moldy Oldies

Happy Friday everyone!  We've waved goodbye to summer, yet as the 2019 Major League Baseball season comes to a close I still find myself focusing more and more on 1950s baseball with respect to my collecting.  Along those lines, I've got a trio of over-sized trios representing three '50s sets to share with you today...

First up, 1954 Bowman.  While I don't prize the over-sized 1953-1955 Bowman sets as much as I do their 1950-1952 predecessors, they're still quite striking as far as vintage cards go.  Thanks to a small surface crease you can see going across Tom's right arm at the elbow, I was able to reel this one in without having to pay the "Yankee tax" you so often run into on vintage.

Toby Atwell of the Pittsburgh Pirates has a much larger crease right across the center of the card.  Hey, what do you expect from a set that officially hit retirement age in 2019!  All I care about as far as cards from this era is that they look appealing overall.  Aside from that I'm happy to overlook a few perceived "flaws".

Last, but certainly not least, 1948 Rookie of the Year Alvin Dark!  This one's got some issues along the lower edge, but meets the same criteria as its comrades above.  I think this one might be my favorite among today's trio of '54 Bowmans.

Without trying all that hard, and mostly through picking up sub-$1 cards like these from COMC over the years, I'm up to more than a couple dozen from this set now.  In fact, I'm just past the 1/8th complete mark.  This one's not high on the list of sets I aspire to finish one day, but that feels significant nonetheless.

Next we turn to a set that is relatively high on the list of sets I'd like to knock off someday, 1955 Topps.  I bought a lot of around 25 or so commons from this set shortly after returning to collecting back in 2007, but then all but ignored the release for many years.  In the past year or so it came back on my radar, and I've been making big strides by grabbing really cheap singles on the regular.

The three new ones I'm featuring today bring me up to 49 cards from this release now!  With just 206 cards in this small set, I'm just one more trio away from crossing the 25% complete mark.  True, there is not one single HOFer or really big star among that grouping of 49, but you have to start somewhere and the approach I've been taking with this one is to nab the low-hanging fruit first.

Frank Sullivan doubles as not only my 49th '55 Topps card, but a great addition to my Red Sox collection as well.  I think if I can keep going like this I'll pick up some of those 8-pocket sheets for these once I get a little closer to the 50% mark, which likely won't be for a year or two anyway.

Love the cartoon spitball on the back of this one!

The final set I have to feature here today is the sister set to '55 Topps, 1956.  I like this release every bit as much as the '55 set, but chose to focus on '55 first because I have a larger grouping of them, and because the checklist is significantly smaller.

That doesn't mean I don't keep my eyes peeled for bargain placeholder cards for my eventual run at '56 though, like this Dale Long which cost me all of 75 cents.

Jim King here was had from the same seller, and for the same price.  Two notches in my '56 belt for a combined $1.50 is a great deal if you ask me.

And we'll close it out for today with New York Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez.  This one's in the finest shape of today's trio of '56s, with just a crease in the lower right corner standing between it and near mint status.

These nine pick-ups are pretty representative of what I've been chasing on the whole as of late.  Who knows, with hockey season and winter right around the corner my tastes could change at any point, but at this moment there's no more satisfying way to spend my hobby funds than on '50 greatness like these singles.

Thanks as always for stopping by!