Card Show Haul - 1961 Fleer

I was thinking of doing a post about the various sets that Fleer printed between 1959 to 1963.  But, truthfully, Chris over at Vintage Sportscards did a far better job than I ever could.  Read his informative post here.  Besides, I am writing this while watching Andy Pettite's return to The Bronx. I am having a hard time focusing on making this a kick ass post.

One of my goals for the show a couple weekends ago, was to work some on my 1963 set and see if I could get some 1960s and 1961s.  As it turned out, I did pick up a few 1961s and 1963s.  I only picked up 17 cards from 1961, not a huge start given it is a 154 card set, but it is a start.

It is a pretty basic back, somewhat reminiscent of 1952 Topps, with some text explaining why the cards subject is considered a "baseball great" and basic career total statistics.

It is something of a patriotic themed design with red stripes, blue stars, and the subjects name in a blue pendant. It features the subjects photo cropped onto a solid color background.  It mainly features (some recently) retired players.

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But, it also features non-players like team executive and National League President Warren Giles.

You have to get a bit of a kick about this. "Home Run" Baker led the AL in home runs 4 straight years from 1911 through 1914.   He hit a total of 42 homers over that 4 year period and a total of 96 over the course of a 13 year career.

 It isn't a particularly attractive card, in my opinion, although it does exhibit some earmarks of a professional design relative to 1960, which looked kinda like a middle school craft project.  But, for collectors looking for a nice, affordable vintage set of some of baseball's biggest stars, it could be a nice choice of sets to build. To be sure, there are some big ticket cards in the set, but the first series "common" cards (#1 to 88) generally book at $3-$4 and the second series (#89 to 154) book at $8-$10 each.  Applying  favorite vintage dealers discount off book for the various condition levels, you can see that it isn't necessarily out of reach.   Granted, Babe Ruth  and Ted Williams (BV $120 each) can hurt, but they are still affordable relative to (for example) Williams playing days Topps and Bowman cards.

Up next:  The final penultimate installment - 1963 Fleer