I Sold My 1953 Topps Cards! Part 3

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating it today!

Back in October, I made the decision to sell off the majority of my 1953 Topps cards for a tidy profit.  I invested most of the proceeds right off the bat, but wanted to make sure I treated myself to some nice cardboard with the return funds as well.

In the last installment of this series I picked up 16 cards towards my rebuild of the '53 set in ungraded, raw format, for an even $40.  Well, we're going back to the 1953 Topps well today with another decent sized batch, this time acquired via eBay.

I won't provide commentary on every card since there are so many, but here's my haul...

I've mentioned before that I'm particularly intrigued by vintage cards that feature franchises of the past, so I was really happy to land this Hank Thompson, outfielder for the New York Giants.  Enough so that this was the third most expensive card in today's post at $6.40.

Ditto.  Love the St. Louis Browns cards from this set in particular thanks to the fantastic team logo that's prominently displayed.  Most of the cards in this order were less than $3.  What can I say, I'm starting with some of the low-hanging fruit in this second go-round.

It's especially rewarding when I'm able to land a card that I didn't have previously in the lot of graded cards that I sold off.  Hal Rice here was an example of exactly that.

I grabbed a few Red Sox that I already have in graded format within this lot as well.  The prices were just too cheap to pass up, and I don't mind having a duplicate raw copy of these in case I ever reach the point where I put this set in a binder.

Aside from the Red Sox, the Brooklyn Dodgers are my favorite team to acquire new '50s cards of, so of course I snatched up this John Rutherford.

Grady Hatton possesses possibly the most interesting background in today's entire lot.  Love the water tower behind the outfield fence there.

I've got a special place in my heart for Fred Hatfield, since his 1952 Bowman release was one of the very first vintage cards I ever owned as a kid (still have my original copy in fact!).

How awesome is that Philadelphia Athletics logo?

Maybe it's just me, but Johnny Groth resembles the Browns' logo just slightly in this portrait.

This Del Rice is perhaps the poorest condition card in today's lot.  Still a perfectly acceptable card for this run at the set though, and especially so given that it set me back less than $2!

Many of these suffer from one or two small flaws that prevent them from being pristine or grade-able copies, like the upper right corner on this Danny O'Connell.  My only criteria is that the cards are reasonably priced, and visually appealing.  I'd like to avoid any total train wrecks condition-wise, but a touched corner isn't going to scare me away.

Not one...

...but two cards in a row featuring scoreboard backgrounds.

Not one...

...but two cards in a row featuring an American flag off in the distance.

The most expensive card in today's post, at just a hair over $7.  I had to pay the "Yankee tax" on this one, but so many of the others were such a bargain that I didn't mind.  In the end I kept the total to around $3 per card averaged out.

Couple of Senators on very similar cards here with Frank Campos...

...and Connie Marrero.

Love the smokestacks in the background on this William Kennedy.

Bill Connelly represents probably the finest card in the lot as far as condition goes.  This one looks every bit as nice as many of the graded examples that I sold off!

I was particularly happy to reel in this Mel Parnell, given that he's one of the Red Sox I am still missing from my graded team set.

Another stunner here as far as condition goes, and a nice low-number card to knock off at card #4 in the set.

One of the more unique backgrounds in today's grouping belongs to Billy Hitchcock and the wooden fence.

Closing things out we've got another pair of New York Giants.

Well, that was exhausting!  If you kept count that was 33 cards from this iconic release.  My take home price for this lot was $98.20 with free shipping.  With a handful of today's cards being Red Sox that I already had graded versions of, I didn't necessarily add 33 new cards to my set total, but I'm now at 63 different cards and counting overall in my second attempt at this set.  Nearly a quarter of the way there already!

Still have plenty of funds left from the sale to play with, and I promise that we'll take a break from the '53s in the next installment of this series.  Until then, thanks for stopping by as always!

1953 Topps Sale Breakdown

$1,000.00 - Invested/Saved
$138.20 - 49 1953 Topps Singles

Remaining Funds:  $611.80