Here’s the other Topps-centric post from 1975 that I wanted to get to before the 50th anniversary year is over.
I’ve reached a milestone of sorts in the 1975 Topps buyback hunt. It’s been exactly 10 years since I first decided to collect these and see how far I could get. I admit that I have gotten further than I thought, especially when I first started the mission. But my approach has always been to keep going. As long as I kept finding new things – and I could still afford them – I would keep going.
I just used 82 percent of the set in buyback form with the addition of three cards. One of them is the Bob Forsch here.
These are the other two. I now have 542 of the 660 cards in the set in buyback form.
These three cards would be considered “commons” by most collectors, but they mean much more than that. All three have amazed me for years. I couldn’t understand why they were so elusive. None are particularly notable. I would reason that I couldn’t find Forsch because it’s his rookie card, but other than a few years he wasn’t a star. I also reasoned that Dave Giusti was so elusive because he was on the 1971 World Series champion Pirates team. All those guys were popular.
But Dan Spillner? No one could appreciate that card more than I did when I pulled it out of a pack on a hot summer day while I was on vacation out of town. Why was it on my wish list for so long?
These three cards felt like such an achievement that I thought I’d write a post about the most inexplicably elusive buybacks during the chase.
Then I realized that I now had almost all those types of cards. Just about all that’s left terribly explainable. I know why I don’t have them. There is only one common character that I don’t own and that is somewhat confusing even though I know the answer.
Card #14. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere in the last ten years. Now, though, it’s understandable because Topps didn’t make any Indians cards available when it created buybacks for the 2024 Heritage set. Milt Wilcox sits between Oscar Gamble and Frank Robinson as ’75 buybacks that I may never get.
But there is still a chance as I have enough buybacks from Indians:
They’re all from 2014 and 2015, that is, before they became the Guardians. Why Wilcox wasn’t in that first group, I have no idea. Or maybe I just missed him.
But now that I’ve gotten all the low-hanging fruit, I’m at the fork in the repurchase road. To illustrate, here is my remaining wish list:
Each of these is a Hall of Famer, an All-Star card, a rookie prospects card, rookie cup dudes, team checklists and set checklists, and a few “cult figures” like Dwight Evans, Boog Powell, and Fritz Peterson. (A few years ago I bolded the ones I saw online somewhere, but there are a few more I’ve seen since).
I’m still hoping to find guys like Buddy Bell, Davey Lopes and Claudell Washington, but otherwise I’ve reached the moment of decision.
Should I increase the amount I pay for this? A large part of them have left Are available. I’ve seen them. Usually for too much money. I have increased the average amount I pay over the years. One time I refused to pay more than $2; they were marred with a postage stamp! When the Heritage buyback programs started popping up on sales sites, I realized I had to spend as much as $10 for many of them.
If I want what’s left, I have to pay $15, $20, $30, $50 or more. Yes, that’s ridiculous. But this is also a ridiculous quest. So in a way it makes sense.
I suspect I will still try to add them, but it won’t be as often and they will arrive in my collection at a much slower pace, one by one. All the while I know I’ll never get buyback cards like Pete Rose and Robin Yount, but I won’t let that get in my way.
It’s been too much fun tracking them down these past ten years.
#Fork #buyback #road