Just Started a PSA Set & I'm below the Poverty line.
OMalleysConscience
Posts: 5
Call me crazy, perhaps obsessive compulsive, obviously irresponsible, or anything else for that matter. It might take me a while, but i'm building a set. Not just any old run of the mill type ensemble, but a titan. All right, enough drama.....
So, as my message title states I don't make a whole lot of money but I live a good life, in my own way and in comparisson to citizens of many third world contries a luxurious one. However, this dose not justify one's right to amass vintage cardboard, slabbed in plastic, and given a number. Still more drama....
So, I have always been fascinated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. I'm not old enough to have seen them play (was born in 76'), or even to have heard stories about them when I was a kid. It all started with a baseball card a childhood friend gave to me, an old beat-up and creased 1954 Topps Jackie Robinson. I was eleven, and probably about as dumb as I am now, but nonetheless that was the beginning.
About five years ago, I started getting on this e-bay brooklyn buying cardboard tangent thing, but mind you I was a broke college student (still am) and was getting nowhere fast. But it nurished the soul, if you will, of trying to rediscover, for myself, an era of the American experience that has since passed, and actually passed at the end 57'.
So as I write this I'm ranked as the number one All-Time Finest in the Key Card Set: 1948-1957 A Decade of Brooklyn Dodgers. My set's entitled "Who's A Bum?" after the famous newspaper headline that appeared the day after Brooklyn won it in 55'. The set is a little over 350 cards, and I have about 6% completed. So far my best card is a 1954 Wilson Franks Roy Campanella (PSA 2). I'm trying to keep the set in the 6.00 range (EXMT), so the big cards will be lesser grade and the commons higher grade. If I keep it this way I think I have a chance to complete it.
Anyways, thanks for reading this and tell me what you think.
Benjamin.
So, as my message title states I don't make a whole lot of money but I live a good life, in my own way and in comparisson to citizens of many third world contries a luxurious one. However, this dose not justify one's right to amass vintage cardboard, slabbed in plastic, and given a number. Still more drama....
So, I have always been fascinated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. I'm not old enough to have seen them play (was born in 76'), or even to have heard stories about them when I was a kid. It all started with a baseball card a childhood friend gave to me, an old beat-up and creased 1954 Topps Jackie Robinson. I was eleven, and probably about as dumb as I am now, but nonetheless that was the beginning.
About five years ago, I started getting on this e-bay brooklyn buying cardboard tangent thing, but mind you I was a broke college student (still am) and was getting nowhere fast. But it nurished the soul, if you will, of trying to rediscover, for myself, an era of the American experience that has since passed, and actually passed at the end 57'.
So as I write this I'm ranked as the number one All-Time Finest in the Key Card Set: 1948-1957 A Decade of Brooklyn Dodgers. My set's entitled "Who's A Bum?" after the famous newspaper headline that appeared the day after Brooklyn won it in 55'. The set is a little over 350 cards, and I have about 6% completed. So far my best card is a 1954 Wilson Franks Roy Campanella (PSA 2). I'm trying to keep the set in the 6.00 range (EXMT), so the big cards will be lesser grade and the commons higher grade. If I keep it this way I think I have a chance to complete it.
Anyways, thanks for reading this and tell me what you think.
Benjamin.
"Birdie Tebbetts was catching once when a batter crossed himself. Birdie called time, and crossed himself. And he told the hitter, 'Now it's all even with God. Let's see who's the better man.'" - Roger Kahn.
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Comments
Jerster
If you finish it I would be much more impressed with your collection than say, Davalillo.
Loves me some shiny!
I always say...Collect what you enjoy, not what is going to let you retire early.
Rob...
WELCOME !!!
Larry
email....emards4457@msn.com
CHEERS!!
Great post! You have 2 very important things going for you. Your age and the fact that your income level "should rise as you age.
Ed
Welcome to the boards. You have come to the right place for help with your set. Keep posting here and you will get some great advice from the foremost experts in the hobby. This forum is a great way to expand your knowledge and meet a lot of great fellow collectors, including many who are more than willing to help you with your collecting needs. You have chosen a tough set to complete and I wish you the best of luck.
JEB.
I will keep on posting my progress, but it will be slow going. I am in the process of buying a 1955 Topps DoubleHeader Jackie Robinson (PSA 7), and I'm not going to be able to buy another card for awhile, after that one. I'm getting a decent deal on it, so I figure I should take it.
The tough cards in the set are the 1955 Topps Hocus Focus, and 1956 Topps Hocus Focus Jackie Robinson. I saw one on e-bay, unslabbed, in supposed NRMT condition (but off-center), go for $400 smacks, maybe a month ago. Seller also used really poor scans. I know the better developed they are the more they're worth (since they were self-developing "magic" cards), but they seem extremely rare in any kind of condition. Does anyone know my best bet at finding one?
Thanks again.
Benjamin.
I too am too young to have seen the brooklyn dodgers play (born in 69), but for some reason i am drawn to them also. My father had quite a baseball collection when he was a kid and like many before him they all went the way of the garbage. except one my aunt kept the 1954 jackie robinson. she gave it to me when i was a kid maybe when i was about 10. i just got it slabbed and it came back a 5, not bad for spending the better part of 10 years in an envelope in a dresser. it could have come back a 1 it would not have mattered. For some reason i also like to pick up affordable gil hodges' cards and i have a 52 snider just because he's a dodger and i can not explain why.
I did go the hall of fame one year, the year reese went in, and got drysdale, snider, koufax and reese, autographs and met campenella and his son (my father's favorite player) maybe these two reasons account for my love for a team i never saw play. if there is a card on ebay concerning this team i always check it out just to see the card. i wish i could explain that.
I wish you luck in your quest if i can be of any help let me know. i also like that quote in your tag line. maybe something dealing with the bums will be my next project. if i come accross anything you need i'll let you know.
good luck
fred
collecting RAW Topps baseball cards 1952 Highs to 1972. looking for collector grade (somewhere between psa 4-7 condition). let me know what you have, I'll take it, I want to finish sets, I must have something you can use for trade.
looking for Topps 71-72 hi's-62-53-54-55-59, I have these sets started
Thanks for pointing out the tag line. It's gotten to the point that I don't ever read them anymore because I know what most of you are looking for. I've got to make a point of looking at the new ones. That was a good one Benjamin.
JEB.
Thanks for the response, that's cool your grandmother gave you a 54' Jackie too. I'm thinking about getting mine slabbed, it would most definately come back a 1, just for sentimental sake, even though it would kill my average, but it is my first brooklyn card. This leads to a greater question for any of you out there:
I have about fifty un-graded brooklyn dodgers that will help me to complete my set. They are all Topps and Bowman regular issues, nothing extremely rare or hard to come by. I have enough experience with PSA to realize that most of them would come back 3's, 4's, or 5's. So, nothing that great and not nessicarily worth the price of grading. The obvious advantage would be the immediate expansion of my set, once I cover the cost of grading, and not having to redue work I have allready done, since I have collected these cards over the last five years. The dissadvantage would be a possibly bad investment (in grading fee's) and the fact that most of these cards are relatively easy to find in better condition. Theorectically, I can just wait till these same cards come up on ebay, (already graded by PSA in 6, 7, 8) get a better card and save myself the expense, hassle, and worry of getting them graded.
Tell me what you think.
benjamin.
I think it all depends on what you are looking to get out of your set. I myself am passivly working on a 1960 raw set in EXMT. I have a number of cards in the set that are creased and have bum corners. But they came from my Dad's collection when he was a kid, so I keep them in there. It is nice to look through the pages and see lots of sharp cards only to come across the Nellie Fox that is creased 3 times down the middle. I keep those because of sentimental value (my dad has passsed).
So I would say if you are worried most about having the number 1 set, with the highest set rating (which many people are) then by all means you should dump the cards that are a little bruised and go for gem mint copies. But if you want your set to hold more than financial value then you should keep them in there.
It all comes down to a fundamental choice in your collection.
Michael
I'm in the same boat as you. I'm in college and broke as a joke. My aspirations are way out of line with my finances. I'm trying to do all years of the Red Man tobacco Cards as well as numerous basketball sets like 1961 fleer. I've scraped enough to get a good start on all of these sets,but it will be awhile to finish, I would say do what makes you happy, but as others have pointed out, if you can grab the rare stuff, do it.
that set! And if you don't complete it this year...
just wait 'til next year!
All corny Brooklyn references aside, glad to see another
true collector posting to the message board.
Chuck