When I returned to collecting back in 2007, one of the first decisions I made was to chase the 1953 Topps baseball set. I had fond memories of this set from my collecting youth, thanks mostly to the 1991 Archives reprint set that came out at the height of my kid collecting frenzy. Back then I always imagined just how cool the over-sized originals must have been, and the thought of getting my hands on some of them really appealed to me.
Now, when I decided to pursue this set at this stage, I was just 24 years old. Far enough into full-time working adulthood to be bringing home decent money, but not so far along as to have a lot of financial obligations dragging me down.
These factors, combined with a dash of naivete and a sprinkle of OCD, resulted in a decision to try to build the entire set in PSA-graded form (the naivete part), and more specifically in a PSA 6 (the OCD part).
This seemed like a good idea at age 24, and for the first few years I got off to the races fairly well, as you can see above. As time rolled on though, I was less and less willing the pay the premium required to land some of the bigger stars. Hell, even commons in this grade are rarely available for less than $15-$20 a pop, and high series commons go for multiple times that.
The stars and HOFers, as you'd imagine, are much worse. For example, after not having the balls to pull the trigger on a PSA 6 Mantle or two back in the day in the $1,500 range, they've now gone up in value to four to five times that amount in the ensuing years. That alone is a deal-breaker for the project, as I don't make the kind of money to shell out multiple thousands of dollars for a single card. In fact all these years later I've never even shelled out the $1,500 that I could have had a Mantle for back then for
any other single card, nor do I anticipate doing so any time soon.
I'd still grab a card or two here and there as time rolled on, and never fully bailed on the project. In fact, I got well past the 1/3 complete mark and was even closing in on the halfway point. It became more and more apparent though that due to my many other collecting interests I was never going to get there in this format.
Right when I was going through this inner turmoil, and working on purging cards and minimizing the size of my overall collection anyway, I was contacted by someone who found my set on the PSA Set Registry to see if I was interested in selling. Since this is already a longer post than most here I'll spare you the details of the negotiation, but in the end I parted with 102 graded 1953 Topps cards. The price we settled on for the lot was $1,750! This one transaction netted me more money than all of my other collection purge sales over the past few months combined.
The cards I got rid of, with one exception (HOFer Hal Newhouser), were all commons or very minor stars. The 102 cards I parted with though weren't the entirety of my '53 collection. I decided to hang onto all of my Red Sox cards in the hopes of completing a team set in graded format; a much more realistic and attainable goal. All of the cards in the remainder of this post are cards I held onto and did not include in the sale.
It just made sense as I was mulling things over. I already have about 2/3 of a team set, and without a Ted Williams card in this release figure it won't be too hard to fill in the missing pieces, especially not with a huge lump sum of money in hand after the transaction.
Most of these have seen the light of day on the blog over the years, such as Ellis Kinder, who debuted here
back in 2013.
To
really make me feel old, this Maurice McDermott was the first '53 Topps Red Sox card I ever featured here on the blog well
over 11 years ago now!
Dick Brodowski's card is famous for being one of the earlier night cards in the history of our hobby.
Just because there's no card of the Splendid Splinter to be found in this release doesn't mean that a Red Sox team set is completely bereft of HOFers. George Kell's enshrined in Cooperstown after all.
Here's one I don't believe I've ever shown before, but am particularly proud of. Of the dozen or so Dom DiMaggio cards I've got in my collection, this might be my overall favorite. How could you not love that smile?
Old-time ballplayers had the absolute best nicknames, no?
Al Zarilla wraps up the lower series as far as my current Red Sox cards go. I do have two from the dreaded high number series that I held onto as well however...
...in outfielder Gene Stephens...
...and shortstop Milt Bolling.
Those of you with a sharp eye and a familiarity with vintage sets may have noticed that Milt here is the final card on the checklist at #280. As vintage collectors know, the first and last cards in each set typically demand a premium. When collectors would sort their cards in order for storage or transport, these were the cards that were exposed on each end of the stack. As such they often took the most damage in the form of sunlight exposure, dings, damage from elastic bands, and more, and are in most cases more difficult to find in good condition than other cards in the release.
Despite the fact that most fans have likely never heard of Milt Bolling, this is a three-figure card in this grade all day long. Couldn't bring myself to part with this one.
So, that's the beginning of the story of how I made the tough decision to part with the majority of my '53s. The story doesn't end here though. The goal with my ongoing collection purging is to not only conserve space and simplify, but also to use the proceeds to set myself up for the future financially speaking. To that end, right off the bat $250 from this sale went into my long-term savings account, and $750 into my growing stock portfolio. I have a feeling I'll end up saving a good deal of the remaining $750 as well, but also promised that I'd treat myself to at least
some new cardboard as a reward for pulling the trigger on this transaction.
In the next installment of this short series I'll show off a couple of the cards that I landed with proceeds from this sale. Until then, thanks as always for stopping by!
Have you ever waved the white flag on a significant collecting quest like this, and made a tough decision to part with the cards either in trade or by sale? If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments...
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