Another One Two in the Books

 Or, perhaps more accurately, the binder.

This is the last card I needed to complete the 1958 Topps baseball set.

And this is the last card I needed to complete the 1973 Topps football base set. I still need two more unnumbered team checklists but I've been working on this for over 4 years and I feel like this is an accomplishment. I'll probably just scope out eBay in the next few days and knock those two checklists off. 

Now my focus will be on three sets:  

• 1972-73 Topps basketball - I only need 23 cards to finish and none of them are all that expensive.  I've been working on this since late 2018, so 5 1/2 years. Time to put it to bed.
• 1970 Topps Football - I am a little short of 70% complete on this, but have pretty much all of the valuable cards. The only star card left is the Jan Stenerud rookie card.  Everything else is commons with a few minor stars sprinkled in.
• 1967 Topps Baseball - Ugh.  I am making some progress on this set and am almost 75% complete.  However, 2/3 of the remaining cards are in the sixth and seventh series, so this will be slow.  I expect it will probably be another 2 years at a minimum.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I may try to knock out another signed 1961 Fleet post.

What I am listening to:  Things Change by Dwight Yoakam

1960 Fleer Autograph Project - Parts 16 and 17

Two updates in one post?  What is up with that? Am I trying to make up for being such an infrequent poster that doubling up is the only way I'll make an appreciable progress?  

No.

I am particularly excited about my 17th signed 1960 Fleer card and, as luck would have it, I have already posted about the subject of the 16th card, albeit in my series of posts about the 1961 set. See?

If you missed my post about my signed 1961 Fleer card of Warren Giles, you can find it here.

So, let's get on to number 17.

I've mostly been focusing on signed 1961 cards, but progress has slowed of late.  Recently, a large group of signed 1960 Fleer cards came up for auction on EBay.  There were plenty of really rare cards in the group; cards that I have never seen before and likely will never see again.  The cards were auctioned off over two nights.  

The first night contained a number of cards that were rare, but do come up on EBay 2 or 3 times a year.  I wasn't going to bid on them just because I will have other chances.  The first group also contained impossibly rare cards of Mickey Cochrane and Frank "Home Run" Baker.  I knew I would never be able to afford them, so I decided to sit on my wallet and focus on the second set a few nights later.  It was the right choice.  The Cochrane sold for $743 and the Baker for an eye-popping $2,431.  Even the more available cards sold for a premium.  Last year, I got a signed 1961 Heinie Manush for $175. The 1960 in this auction went for $281.  A Lefty Grove went for $338 where, in contrast, I got my 1961 Grove for $43.  Just crazy.

The second grouping was similarly divided between cards that come up infrequently and cards that only have come in this auction.  It included Branch Rickey and Bobo Newsom (who died in 1962)  I decided to focus on two cards that were really rare, but still within my budget.   Since the auctions weren't staggered, but closed all at the exact same time, I had to have my bids in on both concurrently. Given the strong prices I decided to bid on both to increase my chances of landing one. Frankly, I was scared that I would win both, but was honestly expecting to get neither, given the strong prices the first night.  I did manage to win one, so let's take a look.