Nearly SEVEN (revised) YEARS in the making - REGISTRY SET COMPLETE! - Pic heavy
bounce
Posts: 1,094 ✭✭✭
UPDATED! Scroll down a number of posts, and you'll see the update.
I joined the forum in January 2014, and almost immediately started a 1956 registry set.
I've always felt this set was the best looking 1950s set. As an autograph collector as well, I really like the design with the "mock" signatures on the cards. I also like that there is a fantastic group of Hall of Famers (really only Musial is missing), but I love that there aren't a bunch of high end HOF RCs in the set. That actually makes it easier to put the set together in my opinion, because you don't necessarily have to drop $5-10k for a single card - at least not in the 6/7 grade range. A final thing I like about this set is that there aren't any missing "numbers" or name variations as in many of the other early 1950s sets. Nothing is really short-printed either, but there are certainly some cards that tougher in higher grades.
The team card variations were an interesting part of the set, and after collecting these for a few years I have to say I probably still prefer the centered no date cards. I have thought about trying to put all the team variations together in a "mini-master" type of set. I also considered doing the low numbers in all grey backs, as the "hi numbers" in white backs are virtually impossible. I'm not even sure someone could actually do that anymore, maybe it's possible but I have no appetite to even try considering I've ever only owned 4 white backs numbered above 100.
It took me until May 2015 to complete my set originally, overall GPA at that time was right around 6.5 and my big stars were half 6s and half 7s. Mantle was a 6 back then. However, I decided I really wanted uniformity of grade in my set so when the opportunity presented itself to sell 75% of the 6s I had, I went for it and broke the set and started upgrading to all 7s.
Well, I finally picked up the last four cards I needed this week and they arrived this morning. Great start to my weekend! I'm really happy to have finished this off - AGAIN.
Now I can focus on my ALL 8 SET!
Hope you enjoy the pictures.
Comments
Absolutely love your set! Not my choice for a PSA set because I don't like the backs. 1963 is my fave. Your Jackie Robinson is awesome! This set is changing my mind and has moved up in my 50's list.
Congrats on finishing a registry set. No easy task given all the distractions that get in the way when putting a set together. Any other sets you are working on?
Somewhere Luis Aparicio is weeping.
Only other "official" registry set I'm on right now is a 1956 set in all PSA 8. Decided I needed like a "decade project", so I pick away at it when I can find affordable cards. I don't have Mantle in an 8 yet, so I'm not entirely committed yet.
I started fully graded 1954 and 1955 sets, but they aren't uniform in grade. I've got most of the big rookies from each in PSA 4-6 range, but I don't "love" those sets as much. I may get focused on one of them, just not sure.
I also have a 1975 Topps set going, all 8s so far. Kind of thought I would do the commons in 8s and HOFers in 9s. I've discovered just how CRAZY a fully graded set of 660 cards is. This is another one I just pick away at from time to time when I can find cheap commons.
You're right actually, I should have said that better. Revised to add "a bunch of high end HOF RCs..."
Aparicio is actually one of THE toughest centered cards in this set, really nice ones are very hard to come by in really any grade
Congrats on completing the set. Even at 342 cards, it is a daunting task. I'm almost at 50% and have been working on it for close to six years. I do agree with you on the team cards, as I seem to like the uniformity with choosing to do the team cards all without dates. Good luck with the 8 set!
Jeremy
Three years? You flew through this set. It took me 11 years to complete my registry set. Congratulations on completion and good luck with your PSA 8 set.
Beautiful set! One of the great sets of all time for sure. Looks great in 7!
"Molon Labe"
Congrats
Love the set myself and a great selection of players.
The horizontal design is awesome.
Are you doing WB and GB variations?
1948-76 Topps FB Sets
FB & BB HOF Player sets
1948-1993 NY Yankee Team Sets
Congrats!
Beautiful cards
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
Bounce - awesome job on the set and what an accomplishment. Cannot imagine the time and effort it took to complete this. Kudos!
KC
Great looking set. Congratulations.
Thanks,
David (LD_Ferg)
1985 Topps Football (starting in psa 8) - #9 - started 05/21/06
I've thought about it. In my experience collecting this set, not many people care that much about the back type and I think generally the prices reflect no significant difference. The only time I've really seen it matter much is on the HOFers, and even then it's usually on 8s and higher.
I suspect the low numbers could be done pretty easily in all gray back, but I just never cared that much. I guess if I really wanted uniformity, I'd do the low numbers in gray backs.
Trying to do the whole set in white backs I would think would be very very difficult. High number white backs are extremely tough.
Congratulations for a tremendous accomplishment. I think the 1956 set is beautiful especially in near mint or better condition.
http://www.unisquare.com/store/brick/
Ralph
Love it! I have always liked the horizontal images of the 55, 56 and 60 set.
Quite an accomplishment in all 7. Congrats!!
MY GOLD TYPE SET https://pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/complete-type-sets/gold-type-set-12-piece-circulation-strikes-1839-1933/publishedset/321940
Very nice set and congratulations on completing this monster. I actually this this is my second favorite 1950's Topps sets behind the 1953. You are young enough to do them all in high grade like this.
Congrats on completing a very nice set. How close are you on the PSA 8 set? I regret selling my PSA 7 Mantle years ago.
James
Great looking set and a job well done! Congratulations.
Spectacular! Your Clemente is exceptional.
I think I'm around 2/3rds of the way, but I still need several of the HOFers including Mantle and most of the "allegedly" low pop commons. Speaking of low pop commons, that's one thing I didn't mention before - Dale Mitchell is one of the WORST "urban legends" of collecting this set. There are numerous cards with lower pops, but for whatever reason his card is always crazy expensive comparatively.
I wish I was that young! LOL. I did look into 1953 at one point and actually started accumulating a few higher end commons, probably 30 or so, but ultimately decided against continuing due to lack of player selection. Without Williams, Snider, Aaron, Clemente, etc. I just didn't quite feel like it was representative enough of that era. I do like the "painting" portrait look, and there is the Paige, but ultimately decided it was well down my list of 1950s sets. The color on the borders certainly presents a nice challenge, along with some of the short printed cards.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing.
Congrats on a beautiful set! All the cards together adds to its beauty. I only own one card from this set...a Mantle 8.5.
Congrats on putting together and completing an iconic set.
Thanks for sharing.
Donato
Donato's Complete US Type Set ---- Donato's Dansco 7070 Modified Type Set ---- Donato's Basic U.S. Coin Design Set
Successful transactions: Shrub68 (Jim), MWallace (Mike)
1953 I'd do the Bowman Color- you'll fall in love with it-- promise
My favorite set! Very nice....congrats!
Congrats!!!!!!
This set in PSA 7 is doable financially. You'll be practically tripling that budget for all 8's.
If you sell any of those HOF's, let me know.
LaJoie Portrait 3+, Cy Young Bare Hand 3+
Ty Cobb Bat Off 4+, ANY Red & Green Portrait
Astonishing
7 years...
Seems so short and so long at the same time. This piece of my collecting adventure started in late 2013, just as I was really coming back into card collecting. My interests had really shifted in the late 90s/early 00s to autograph collecting. In person, at shows, I was on the hunt for great signatures for nearly 15 years pretty hard core. It was only after I got married, had kids, just didn't have the time for the in person autograph collecting that I really started getting back into cards.
And it wasn't card from my youth, which was 80s/90s - junk wax era. I started really getting interested in the "all timers" of the game, so naturally I landed in the 1950s and the turn of the century (T206 mostly) eras of cards. I was only a player collector once in my life, for a brief period of time. I otherwise was always a set collector. So as I started looking to collect again, it was obvious I would never be able to complete the Monster of T206s, because when would I realistically ever be in position to acquire the Wagner? That's a ton of cards to compile and not have the crown jewel, but I do subset collect T206 Hall of Famers and that been a satisfying and continuing journey.
As I researched sets of the 50s, 60s, even 70s, I just kept coming back to the 1956 Topps set. As an autograph collector, too, the design of the cards just always appealed to me. The combination of the faces, action pictures and replica autograph just gives the card great appeal. I also normally don't like horizontal poses, but again the combination that comes together in this design just really sets it apart. It also became clear from the pop reports (which was something I knew literally nothing about when I first got back into this) that this was a really popular set with collectors, and arguably might be the most popular set of the 50s? There's around 100 pretty active and/or complete registry sets of 1956s, by comparison there's less than 70 or so 1952s. Obviously some bigger rookie card challenges with the 1952, which likely accounts for the difference. Still, 1956 Topps is a staple of vintage card collecting, and I just decided it was the set for me.
So I started the journey in early 2014, with the intent of building a PSA 6 fully graded set. At 342 cards, it was daunting enough but not so overwhelming that I knew it could be achieved with the right level of focus and price discipline. Somewhere around halfway through building an all 6 set I realized that it was probably going to take longer than I wanted, as I needed more inventory availability to move it along. So at that point I "bit the bullet" and decided I would do combo 6s and 7s. By early 2014, I was coming down to the last 20 or so cards to complete my set, and my avg GPA was about 6.5 - so half 6s, half 7s.
Of course at that point, with the finish line in sight, I don't think it's unusual for set collectors to start thinking about "what's next", because you really need that next project to be lined up. Because of some of the variations within the set like the dated team cards, the gray back and white backs, there is some opportunity to go for a "master". But I've never been a "master set" type of guy. I knew I'd be satisfied with the full 342, however it came together. I ultimately finished up that 6/7 combo set in May of 2015, so not quite 18 months from when I started.
I had met a number of cool collectors along the way, people who were also building the set or other vintage collectors who helped me with my set, I had helped them with theirs as well, as I would frequently buy lots of graded 1956s for the ones I needed and just sell the dupes. So in that final stretch, one of the collectors I had gotten close with was working on a full set in 6s. He needed basically all of my 6s except about 20, and I figured what the heck - let's do this thing in 7s. So I sold roughly half my set, and "started over" so to speak.
At this point I had a huge affection for the set and the cards, was really getting in tune with pop reports and which ones were really tough and which ones were "urban legends" of tough. I was also really familiar with centering issues, minor back scarcity, all the little things you discover about a set when you've dug into all the details. And really - PSA 7s are normally really nice cards, so this set collection was really going to be something. But yet again, trying to get them all in a single grade wasn't keeping me quite busy enough, so of course what do I do? I decide to start a second set of all 8s. Now, the entire set is available to me again, and I know I've taken on a multi-year project. So the second half of 2015 was a really busy time, because when you start a clean slate of 342 cards, and have half a set of another, there is always something available to be had. That's where the discipline matters. Anyone with money can take cards down on buy it nows or bid things up, but I was focused on the cost side and was starting to learn more about eye appeal, I wanted the right combination of both. Let's be serious, how many people would ever really study how well centered my Pedro Ramos was? That's again something I enjoy about set collecting, I can take a little bit of a break from the "eye appeal" discussions and just get a nice looking card and feel good about it - even if the centering is 55/45.
And so the search began to finish a 7 set, and build an 8 set. In hindsight, this was probably not the greatest collecting decision I ever made, I mean why didn't I just replace the 6s with 7s and eventually 7s with 8s? Who can say why we really do this stuff? That's the path I chose, and it continued steadily over the next several years into 2018. At that point, I had become a little bit of a "registry monkey" I have to admit, I was constantly looking at the registry and adding my cards so I could climb the all time list. The registry was also such an easy way to keep my "checklists", and really from that standpoint it is very useful. I ultimately completed the all 7 set in October 2016, again not quite 18 months from the "start" of the reset.
So at that point, October 2016, I'm focused on 8s and 8s only. And things slowed down considerably at that point. If you're really going to make a set of 1956 Topps in all 8s work, you have to have the discipline to not overbid on the commons. Just about all of them available in pretty frequent time frames, but the prices can go all over the place. Registry sets were the rage as well at this time, and there were constantly fights over some of the lower pop commons that would send VCP in a tailspin - or should I say rocket ship. And once it goes for $X, everyone wants $X plus 10-15% for the next one, and so on and so on. You must keep the goal in mind, and I'm just not one to chase price on commons. I just won't do it. Stars and HOFers is a different discussion, but the realistically I don't care if I have the best looking Pedro Ramos in an 8 holder, I'm not paying 2X the average just to knock a card down - at least not until the finish line is in sight anyway. So what went from several cards a month slowed to single digits, sometimes even none, but the chase continued. And considering I had a full set of 7s, no need to be in a hurry.
Until August of 2018 rolls around, and someone posts they have a fully graded NEAR set of 1965 Topps, all 8s and a few 8.5s and 9s. It's missing 5-6 cards including some big guys, but 1965 is my favorite set from that decade and I definitely don't have the appetite to take on 598 new cards from scratch, so... some VCP calculating and wheeling and dealing and I swapped my 1956 set of 7s for the near set of 1965s and I'm back to two sets to finish up - all 8s in both. It was tough retiring that set of 7s from the registry, but the 8s were my focus now and I was really excited to have another set to chase - downgrading 8.5s and 9s to 8s for cash to help me pay for the few missing still from the 1965s. And so the chase continues...
Until FINALLY - August 2020 - TWO YEARS LATER - I got this guy in the mail.
He's the LAST CARD I needed to complete my 1956 Topps Basic set in all PSA 8. According to the registry, I'm tied for 27th all time - can you believe that, 27th?!?! - but it's finally done. I plan to spend some time this weekend going through them all again, I'll come back and add pics of the HOFers, but I'm really excited to just enjoy looking at the cards. It's been a trip, a pretty long one really, but it's been really one of the best parts of my collecting life. I get to see singles all the time, have held tons of really expensive cards that are worth more than my whole set of 8s, but I don't know that I would trade the experience of completing this set (again!) for anything.
And no, I'm not looking to upgrade it. I'm good here. And I'm still working on those 1965s, I just have 1 to go on it, too! So who knows, maybe I'll be back soon...
Nice job on one of my favorite sets. It looks like you sought out high end 7s with good centering. The Mantle is really nice. I'm also working on the set in all 8. I have about a dozen cards to go including a few of the big ones. Good luck with your PSA 8 set and 1975 set.
Huge Congratulations!! I am disappointed you won't be stalking me at this year's National. Hope to catch up in Chicago!
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
Collecting:
Any unopened Baseball cello and rack packs and boxes from the 1970's and early 1980s.
That is a major accomplishment to say the least. Congrats on sticking with it to completion. Look forward to seeing you post some of the favorites.
Here you go folks
Congratulations, quite the accomplishment! Good luck on your 65 set!
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Greg Maddux #1 Master SetGreg Maddux #2 Basic Set
Great accomplishment and throughout your journey you modified it, but always stayed true to the 1956 set. I will be 11 years working on the set in PSA7 this December and I currently sit at 75%. I really enjoyed reading about your thought process in accumulating your set. Also, the 65 set isn't too shabby either!
Nice. Like both of those years as well.
That 56 set was my favorite since I was a kid and saw that Jackie in the Baseball Card Flipping, Trading & Bubblegum book. I have never actually checked to see if I have a full set, but between all of my singles and the several 100s that I have signed, I have to be pretty close, if not complete. They are all raw, unless I have a couple autographed cards that were signed.
Someday, maybe I'll checklist my singles and see where I stand, but I know I have all the big names. Completing it would not be that tough. Not much of a set guy though.
Great cards and awesome thread! Your passion certainly shines through...
...the Mantle’s?
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/987963/1951-wheaties-premium-photos-set-registry#latest
Killer... 56 set is a beauty !