1978 Topps - Part 1

It was either my 13th or 14th birthday that my mom and dad gave me nine 1978 baseball cards as a gift.  At the time, I was more interested in collecting cards of the more current players, so I tucked them away in a box to save for a later date.

I've been in a baseball vintage mood for a while now.  I've purchased pennants and bobbleheads.  I have a bat from my mom's parents' old house.  I have a couple of Norman Rockwell prints of baseball scenes.  I even found an old catcher's mask in a corner of one of storage closets at school.  My man room is all decked out.

These 1978 Topps baseball cards are cool.  Really cool.  They have statistics on the back from the year I was born and there are a ton of names in the 726 set that I don't know.  But, what's better, is that I know more than I ever would have thought!  There are quite a few Hall-of-Famers in the set and many others that I recognize for obscure reasons.  Here's one of the cards that Mom and Dad gave me some twenty years ago.  It features two Hall-of-Famers: one made a living out of throwing 98 mph heaters and the other threw knuckleballs that wouldn't top 70 mph on a wind-aided day.  I love the contrast of pitching styles!

So back in early November I went to a baseball card show with Jane just for kicks.  I came out of there with 13 Cardinal cards for the whopping total of $1.45.  (For the record, I already had most of the Cubs.)  All were 10 cents except for Keith Hernandez who was a quarter.  Hernandez was featured in a couple of Seinfeld episodes... absolute classics!  Paying a quarter for Mr. Hernandez was no sticking point!

So, the hunt is on.

I was up to about 87 cards when I decided that I should win an auction on eBay to get a good start on the set.  When trying to complete a set I used to just by a box of cards and then search for the rest at shows, but a box of 1978 Topps is not cheap.  A box would feature 36 packs with each pack containing 15 cards for a total of 540 cards.  I found a lot on eBay for 500+ cards.  Behold!

The description of the lot was simple enough.  I don't need pristine cards.  A set of cards in mint condition is well north of $200.  Seriously, I'm in it for the fun of collection and I certainly won't stick my nose up at some cards described to be in "poor" condition.  My goal is to complete the set for under $50.


So my $24 worth of cards arrived to today.  Apparently, these were once Scott Carpenter's cards and Scott liked to store his baseball cards in a "Fund Milk Chocolate with Hazel Nuts" from the Cadbury company.  Go figure.



















What you see below is a glimpse of my happiness.  Many, many cards with statistics to review and numbers to collate them by!

There's a Ken Griffey, Sr. card on top, and he's joined by a pair of Cadinals.  I have no idea who Terry Harmon is, but that's what the back of the card is for, and baseballreference.com of course. But, have no fear!  At the top you can see a card of the Chicago Cubs manager: Herman Franks.  Sweet!  Oh, and by Ken Griffey you may be able to see a Dodgers card... I slid Mr. Griffey over and it's none other than Dusty Baker!  Yep, the same Dusty Baker that managed the Cubs to the playoffs.

No worries as updates will follow.  This is going to be great!