For the remainder of my time at Monday's Mansfield card show, I ended up focusing solely on 2 different things. The first was cards from the 1961 Topps set, and the 2nd ended up being new additions to my Anthony Rizzo player collection.
With new Red Sox additions and dime cards serving as the primary focus for a majority of the time that I was there, I wanted to make the most of my remaining time and allotted budget by expanding the selection of cards that I brought home.
By doing this, I could also accomplish one of my primary goals for this card show; track down some cards from the want list. The way I was able to do this was by purchasing some commons from the oldest set that I'm currently trying to piece together; 1961 Topps.
Last summer at The National, I was able to make some significant progress with the 1961 Topps set thanks to a major purchase of discounted cards from a vendor at the show. It was that significant purchase that confirmed my mission to complete this set and with my key rookie cards already in my collection (Santo, Williams, and Yastrzemski), there aren't a ton of key names still left to chase down beside Mickey Mantle, a card that's likely to set me back quite a lot of money.
I was able to put together a reasonable stack of 15 cards for an even more reasonable price with each card costing either $1 or $2 each. 1961 Topps isn't a huge set at only 589 total cards, but the set is home to dozens of Hall of Famers and, because of how old it is, even the costs of low-numbered cards can be a bit higher than one would expect.
Because of that, any dent I can make in the set is extremely helpful towards my goal of completing the entire set within the next few years.
With 15 more cards going towards my set, I'm now 291 cards away from completing this product. While that may seem like, and still is, a lot more cards to track down, this 15-card purchase from Monday's show set me over the halfway mark which isn't too shabby considering I haven't even been collecting this set for a full year.
I must admit, 1961 Topps commons and graded Anthony Rizzo cards are a pretty strange combination for this blog post, but towards the very end of the card show, I ended up making my way towards a dealer who had marked down prices on all of his PSA and Beckett graded cards, including a surplus of cards of Cubs 1st baseman, Anthony Rizzo.
For the price of 2 retail packs of Topps Series 1, I picked up a graded yellow parallel from 2014 Bowman of the 3-time All-Star, numbered out of 99 copies on the back. While I first thought the bright yellow parallel would be too much for this card, I've grown to appreciate the untraditional color the more I look at this Beckett graded card.
It's kind of hard not to get sucked in by bright colored refractors and parallels, especially if it's a rookie card of one of your favorite players in all of Baseball. While this purple refractor from 2011 Bowman Chrome isn't serial numbered, the rookie card is graded at a PSA 9, and it just so happens to be my first rookie card of Anthony Rizzo, showing the slugger with the team he got his first hit with, the San Diego Padres.
And while Anthony Rizzo first played in the big leagues with the Padres, the 2-time Gold Glove award winner was originally a prospect in the Red Sox organization before he was traded for Adrian Gonzalez back towards the end of 2010.
Much like the Bowman Chrome card was my first rookie card of Rizzo, this 1st Bowman card is my first ever card of Rizzo as a member of the Red Sox. Better yet, it's graded at a 9.5 by Beckett with some nice sub-grades, including a 10 for the surface.
I could have paid $1 more for a black parallel graded at a 9, but I went with the higher grade and lower price instead, and I don't think I could've been happier.
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