Tim Wallach: Sunday Edition

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Sunday Edition

Odds & Ends

My collecting has been somewhat scatter shot lately. It's still primarily driven by set builds, I just haven't been able to focus on a single set since knocking off 1972 Topps a couple of months back. 1953 Topps has somehow turned into my primary focus. This week I picked up a big one in that Pee Wee Reese card above. It's actually my first Reese card. He's a high number in the '52 set, so isn't one of the ones I picked up while knocking off cards 1-310 in that effort. The Willie Mays is the last major hurdle between where I am and completing the '53 set. Billy Martin, Phil Rizzuto, Ed Mathews, and Warren Spahn are going to cost me a few bucks, but they're all going to be closer to the cost of going to Buffalo Wild Wings than they are a car or house payment.

Eddie Robinson and Virgil Trucks are couple of the last "low hanging fruit" cards I had to pick up. Here on out it's pretty much all high numbers and Hall of Famers. Below are three high numbers I picked up. While the '53 high numbers are no where near as expensive in price as their '52 counterparts, they seem to be going up in price almost daily. I keep having to raise my self-imposed limits on what I'm willing to spend. Unfortunately I think that trend is going to continue.

I'm not currently working on the '54 Topps set, and am not a particular fan of Ed Mathews (I don't have any issues with the guy either), but ended up picking up this card. I was looking for the '53, and this showed up in the eBay results for some reason. It was priced right so I figured why not.

I can't seem to decide whether I want to focus on 1971 or 1973 Topps, so as a result I've been making slow progress on both. Here are few cards that crossed my desk this week. That Game #5 Brooks Robinson card seems to go for some screwy prices on eBay, but I got lucky and found one more in my range on Sportlots.

And as if I wasn't too spread out in my efforts as it is, lately I've decided it would be a good idea to start working on 1987-88 and 1988-89 Fleer basketball sets. I'm one card away from knocking off the 1988 set, and down to about a dozen for 1987. To make things more difficult for myself, I've decided I'm going to go after the stickers as well but have yet to make a list for those.

One of my habits when I buy cards on Sportlots and other sites, is see if the seller as any Wallach cards I can add to my order without adding to shipping cost. Here's a look at some Wallach's I bought with all of the above cards.