My HOF Binder Project

I think I've mentioned my Hall of Fame Binder Project in passing during a couple of blog posts in the past, but I feel it deserves it's own moment in the spotlight.

My goal is to have one card of every player elected to The Baseball Hall of Fame and display them within the pages of a binder. I've been setting cards aside for the project for years now, but I didn't become organized until just recently.  Underneath the Eamus Catuli header of this blog you'll see a "HOF" tab and that's where you can check my progress.

Ideally, every card should be from the players' playing days, but that's a pretty unrealistic goal considering some of the players had careers in the 1800's.  Plus, there's another huge factor: money.  I'm not made of it.
Thankfully, Topps has put out a ton of reprints the last few years and that has helped. Having a shiny reprint of a 1952 Mickey Mantle is nice, but I'll take the creases, stains, holes and rounded corners of vintage cardboard any day of the week.

Last Friday I stopped by my LCS and picked up a trio of vintage Hall of Famers for a buck each.

 Red Schoendienst was elected as a player, and this 1971 card shows him about seven years after his playing days as a manager. Again, I'm not too picky. 

 The Nellie Fox card is from the 1962 set and it possesses two solid creases and twice as many fuzzy corners. For a buck?  I love it!

I checked Ebay and you can't buy a Ted Williams card from a vintage Topps set for under $100.

So finding this 1959 Fleer card in the back of the vintage singles bin for a dollar, no matter the condition, really made my day.

 I suppose I could do a lot of damage to my want list if I wanted to pick out all the singles from the Conlon Collection or one of Panini's Cooperstown sets. That would be nice, but I'm looking for a little variety in my collection and I also enjoy the challenge.

If you have any beat up HOF vintage, which you have since upgraded, don't be shy about contacting me. Even if the player is not listed on my want list the odds are still great that your beat up vintage would be an upgrade for me over a shiny reprint.  I'd love to work out a trade!

I can't wait to hit a card show now that I'm organized. I could have a bunch of fun sifting through some of those low grade vintage bins!

Thanks for reading!