Oddball Vintage Sets Galore; National Recap Part #4

With all the things going on at The National, anywhere from vendors to case breaks to autograph opportunities, it's easy to get distracted and lose track of what you're looking for and what cards you'd like to get. While I came to the show with a list and goals to achieve, I got caught up in the craziness almost right away. 

My biggest unwritten goal for The National was to focus quite a lot on vintage cards, whether it be for player collections or sets that I'm building. Not only is this stuff not going to be easily accessible forever, the prices also aren't going to go down (at least that much), so the right time to buy vintage is always as soon as you can.

I visited a vendor whom I had bought from earlier at the show, and he had multiple display cases full of cards from various vintage sets. Instead of the regular 60's Topps sets drawing my interest, I became more intrigued by the oddball sets such as the 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards like the Rod Carew at the top of this post. The prices were very fair with some cards costing me only 50 cents, so I knew I was going to be here for a fair amount of time.

Since I am not building the 1969 Topps Deckle Edge set, the cards I sought after were of players that I collect. In this case, those 5 players were Rod Carew, Willie McCovey, Luis Tiant, Willie Horton, and Willie Mays. Although some of the cards are poorly-centered, especially the Mays, I mentioned before how fair these prices were. So in a way, the not-so-perfect condition is made okay by how well-priced all this dealer's cards were.

I was also able to track down the final 2 cards needed to complete the 1968 Topps Game set after literally years of waiting. It's not like I've never looked for these before, I guess it was just not seeing them at the show and not really thinking to buy them online. So, for a grand total of $4, I was able to complete this interesting 33-card vintage set.

If I were to have one regret from my time at The National, it's that I didn't go for it and buy even more original Hostess cards. I bought a few of them from this dealer, but I barely bought anymore. It's not like they weren't widely available in both individual cards and full, un-cut panels, it's just that I had so many other goals to accomplish.

I've always been a huge fan of the Hostess sets from the 70's, though my personal favorite would have to be the colorful 1976 set which is weirdly similar to the 1976 Topps set. Even though some of the Hostess sets have been a bit boring, like the 1975 set that Fergie Jenkins is shown in, it's still a favorite of mine because of the reoccurring blue and red colors, the classic 70's jerseys, and the players included on each checklist.

For one reason or another, this vendor happened to have an abundance of 1965 Topps Embossed cards, all priced just as well, if not better, in comparison to the rest of his stuff. Firstly, I picked up a couple of cards for player collections of some lesser players from the 60's. The good thing about collecting cards of guys like Mickey Lolich and Milt Pappas is that even vintage cards like these only set me back 50 cents each.

With that being said, even the card of Hall of Famers like Cubs third baseman Ron Santo was only $2. Now, I'm no expert on baseball card prices and I don't try to be, but the prices I've listed so far seem pretty low for vintage cards in the condition that they're in. It doesn't even bother me that the 1965 Topps Embossed cards show damage more easily or the 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards are not centered very well. I came to this show in the hopes of adding vintage cards to my collection, and I was slowly able to accomplish that.

One thing to point out about the 1965 Topps Embossed set is that the American League cards are blue while the National League cards are in red. While I do like the different colors in the set, they seem the opposite of what we're used to. Typically, we associate red with the AL and blue with the NL, or am I mistaken?

I'm not sure if I struck a gold mine with the good deals, especially regarding the 1965 Topps Embossed set, or if they're all just priced pretty low. Either way, I only had a card or 2 from this set before heading to The National, but now I'm pretty interested in it. In fact, I may be interested in building this set someday, though I do believe it's rather large considering it's supposed to be a small set for all-stars. I probably wouldn't start pursuing it right away, but it could happen someday a few months from now once I agree to let myself spend money on cards once again.