We Didn't Start The Fire (but we finished the binder!)

Way back in 2017, I got the idea to put together a binder corresponding to subjects referenced in the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire". 

Fun way to combine the hobby and history, right? Took damn near a decade, but I've now finally filled every open slot. 

Is every selection a perfect match? Nah, there are definitely some cheeky placeholders that might be a stretch, and occasionally small/flat non-card items take the place of cards, plus a few homemade customs for subjects where no viable card/item could be found. So while it's still very possible that I upgrade/change a spot here and there in the future, I'm good with the group as-is and appreciate the closure of the now-filled binder.

I'm not sure the best way to share the experience without flipping though the binder yourself while the song plays. I'd be tempted to make a video, but I still haven't really cracked the nut of making YouTube videos, plus there's the whole "legal rights to use the song" headache.

So I'll link to the song above via YouTube then show full-page scans, hopefully legible enough for you. You might want to first scroll down without the music, so you can go at your own pace on each card, and maybe then go back and give it a quicker go while the song plays. Or do it the other way: trying to keep up with the song first, then go back afterwards to take a closer look. Or don't even play the song at all, if that's asking too much. Regardless, enjoy!

And now here's the recap in text form. First card is an introductory custom I made in 2017 using the cover of the song's single.

Harry Truman	2012 Panini Americana #33
Doris Day	1991 Starline Hollywood #46
Red China	1961 Domino Les Produits du Monde #21 La Chine (China)
Johnnie Ray	Johnny Ray 2013 Hometown Heroes auto
South Pacific	2017 The Lights of Broadway
Walter Winchell	(2018 custom I made with real cut signature)
Joe DiMaggio	1984 Renata Galasso #235
Joe McCarthy	1992 Conlon Collection #589 (I've also got an oversized Senator Joseph McCarthy card in the binder's front window.)
Richard Nixon	2012 Panini Americana #37
Studebaker	1924 Imperial Tobacco Canada Motor Cars E50 #4
Television	2011 Topps American Pie #40
North Korea/South Korea	1991 Pro Set Desert Storm #53 (Yeah, this could be 2 spots, but this card says both names on the map, and other North Korea [only] cards proved elusive.)
Marilyn Monroe	1995 Sports Time Marilyn Monroe II #141
Rosenbergs	1989 Donruss #219 Steve Rosenberg
H-Bomb	1997 Metal Universe #38 Gary DiSarcina
Sugar Ray	1991 All World Boxing #123
Panmunjom	(2026 custom I made)
Brando	2011 Topps American Pie #10
The King And I	2007-08 Breygent Classic Vintage Movie Posters #55
and The Catcher In The Rye	2011 Topps American Pie #31
Eisenhower	2007 Topps Allen & Ginter #62
Vaccine	2015 Topps history insert #2A Vaccine
England's got a new queen	2013 Ginter mini #HHH-QE Elizabeth II
Marciano	2011 Topps American Pie #56
Liberace	1991 Starline #41
Santayana goodbye	(2026 custom I made)
[Chorus]	2022 Topps Fire insert #EF-17 Trea Turner
Joseph Stalin	2009 iCardz/Valor Studios America at War: Series 1 - D-Day
Malenkov	1954 North VN stamp w/Malenkov, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Tse-tung
Nasser	1973 Panini OK VIP #36
and Prokofiev	2012 Ginter Musical Masters Minis #MM-10
Rockefeller	2016 Goodwin Champions Goudey #47
Campanella	2012 Panini Cooperstown #108
Communist Bloc	2018 Ginter - Flags of Lost Nations: East Germany
Roy Cohn	2023 Historic Autographs The Mob #216
Juan Peron	(2026 custom I made) (There's a vintage Juan Peron card I've got a saved search for in case it pops up at a good price, but otherwise a custom will suffice.)
Toscanini	1952 Topps Look 'n See #117
Dacron	"On The Move with Dacron" vintage matchbook cover
Dien Bien Phu falls	1988 Dart Vietnam Facts #7 Dien Bien Phu
Rock Around the Clock	2011 Topps American Pie #42
Einstein	2008 Allen & Ginter #19
James Dean	2001 Topps American Pie #147
Brooklyn's got a winning team	1971 Fleer Laughlin World Series 1955
Davy Crockett	2008 Allen & Ginter #232
Peter Pan	1991 Topps Hook - Stickers #7
Elvis Presley	1992 Elvis #358
Disneyland	2011 Topps American Pie #50
Bardot	1950s Dutch Gum A. Set (Sweden) #A. 24
Budapest	2019 Goodwin Champions Map Relics #WT-194 - Budapest, Hungary (The thickest card in the binder, with a real piece of a map embedded.)
Alabama	1987 Zoot U.S. of Alf Stickers #1 Alabama
Khrushchev	2008 Heritage - News Flashbacks #NF6
Princess Grace	2013 Panini Golden Age #63
Peyton Place	Peyton Manning 2012 Score #297
Trouble in the Suez	2009 Topps Allen & Ginter #220
[Chorus]	2020 Spider-Man - Primary Elements #E-4 Fire
Little Rock	2002 Topps American Pie Thurgood Marshall #96
Pasternak	Dawson Pasternak 2023-24 Upper Deck CHL Blue #7
Mickey Mantle	1952 Topps #311 reprint
Kerouac	2011 Topps American Pie #62
Sputnik	2012 Ginter - Historical Turning Points #HTP19
Zhou Enlai	1973 Panini VIP sticker #19
Bridge On The River Kwai	Kawhi Leonard 2017-18 Panini Status Aspirations #51
Lebanon	1991 Pro Set Desert Storm #33
Charles de Gaulle	2007 Topps Distinguished Service #DS27
California baseball	2013 Hometown Heroes Gary Pettis state parallel
Starkweather Homicide	1992 Eclipse True Crime Series 1 #79 Starkweather & Fugate
Children of Thalidomide	(2026 custom I made)
Buddy Holly	1993 American Bandstand #5
Ben-Hur	1984 Hoyle Photo Trivia MGM Movies Game #86
Space Monkey	1963 Lyons Maid Space Exploration #30 Ham the Monkey
Mafia	2016 Historic Autographs The Mob #42 Al Capone
Hula Hoops	1991 Impel Minnie 'n Me Series 1 #75
Castro	2008 Topps Heritage - News Flashbacks #NF3
Edsel is a no-go	2011 Topps American Pie #61
U-2	2000 Air Force History and Museums - U2
Syngman Rhee	(2026 custom I made)
payola	Alan Freed 1957 Topps Hit Stars #62
and Kennedy	2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces #47
Chubby Checker	1993 American Bandstand #9
Psycho	2011 Topps American Pie #73 Hitchcock
Belgians in the Congo	1965 Topps Silly Stickers - Visit the Congo
[Chorus]	2006 Flair Showcase Manny Ramirez Hot Numbers
Hemingway	2009 Topps American Heritage #10
Eichmann	1990 Clemson Tigers #22 Eric Eichmann
Stranger in a Strange Land	2010 Rittenhouse LOST #61
Dylan	2018 Edward Vela art card #5
Berlin	1910-11 ATC Flags of all Nations
Bay of Pigs invasion	2001 Topps American Pie #117
Lawrence of Arabia	2007 Breygent Lawrence of Arabia
British Beatlemania	1964 Topps Beatles #165 George Harrison
Ole Miss	2021 Panini Prizm #124 Elijah Moore Green Prizm
John Glenn	1992 Starline Americana #227
Liston beats Patterson	1991 All World Boxing #102
Pope Paul	2012 Heritage - News Flashbacks #NF-PP
Malcolm X	1993 Pinnacle #302 DeShields/Malcolm X
British Politician sex	2002 Inkworks Osbournes #26 Sex, Drugs (Ok, the Osbournes aren't politicians, but they're British, and the first word on the back of the card is "Sex", so 2 out of 3 ain't bad!)
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?	2013 A&G Assassination of JFK (CC-JFK)
[Chorus]	1991 Score #884 Doug Jones Dream Team
Birth control	2011 Topps American Pie #76
Ho Chi Minh	2002 Topps American Pie #53 Vietnam War
Richard Nixon back again	2011 Topps American Pie #116
Moonshot	2018 Heritage - News Flashbacks: Moon Shot
Woodstock	2009 Upper Deck Philadelphia #327 Woodstock
Watergate	2001 Topps American Pie #135
punk rock	2011 Topps American Pie #123 Ramones
Begin	2009 Topps American Heritage #125 Camp David Accords
Reagan	2005 Topps Turkey Red #287
Palestine	1924 Ogden's Children of all Nations Stand-Ups #33
Terror on the airline	1993 SkyBox Ultraverse #61 Hijack
Ayatollah's in Iran	1991 Face To Face - Ayatollah Khomeini
Russians in Afghanistan	1910 Types of Nations - T113 #AFG
Wheel of Fortune	2011 Topps American Pie #120
Sally Ride	1992 Starline Americana #198
heavy metal suicide	1985 AGI Rock Star #2 Ozzy Osbourne
Foreign debts	1994 Fleer Beavis and Butt-Head #5169 Foreign Exchange
homeless Vets	2022 Garbage Pail Kids #15a Homeless Hazel
AIDS	1992 Wild Card Decision '92 AIDS/Magic Johnson
crack	2006 Family Guy S2 #28 Crack & Pancakes
Bernie Goetz	2011 Topps American Pie #194 Bernie Madoff (Wrong bad Bernie, I know, but still seems like a better fit than a John Rocker card.)
Hypodermics on the shores	2006 Topps Barry Bonds Home Run History #666 (Ribbing Bonds here, though he's a guy I enjoy collecting.)
China's under martial law	1991 Impel Disney #177 World Tour: China
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore	1991 Pepsi Rickey Henderson #NNO
[Chorus]	2012 BBM Cross Blaze - Kazuhisa Makita
[Chorus]	2007 Score JaMarcus Russell Hot Rookie
[Chorus]	2014 Bowman Chrome Addison Russell Fire Die-Cut

For more info on specifically what Billy Joel was talking about, Wikipedia has you covered with a handy page: List of references in We Didn't Start the Fire.

It might not be perfect, but I like this ragtag group of assembled cards. Years included range from 1910 up to modern stuff. Some cards were sourced from my collection, a lot I bought specifically for the project, and several were traded to me back in the project's early days. I didn't blog about it much over the years, though, just slowly kept it going on the backburner. I know fellow cardblogger Nick V. in particular has spoken highly of the project in the past, and so I'm relieved to get this follow-up post done that I've felt I owed him for several years.

I don't doubt if another collector put together a similar project from scratch, it would look much different, though I'm sure there'd be some only-card-of-the-subject-out-there repeats. Feel free to make suggestions for cards that could upgrade a slot for me-- especially if you're offering it for trade or kindness-- as long as you don't be snobby about it.

I probably ended up spending more on this project than I would have liked-- some of those vintage cards and oddballs are tougher than you'd expect, so it's like, "Do I pony up a few bucks for a nice match, or settle for a cheaper card that's not quite a home run?" Sometimes I cheaped out, other times I ponied up a few bucks.

A brag-worthy eBay deal I looked up in my old emails: December 2018, I scored a hand-collated 200-card set of 2011 Topps American Pie for just $16.50 (free shipping), which as you've seen helped me fill over a dozen slots in the binder. Glad I've also hung onto the rest; These days the set's "Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift" card is no stranger to selling for 3-figures.. yowza! It's almost like the non-sport equivalent of the Mike Trout rookie from the same year. Thinking I should maybe get around to acquiring "dupes" of those several cards I plunked out for the binder so I'll have a separate complete '11 Pie set in the collection. They're added to my TCDb wantlist now, at least.

That'll wrap it up. Hope you enjoyed checking out the binder!

Pristine Legends #1 - Vida Blue

Yep, here's the start of a new recurring blog series where I'll take you readers on a tour through my beloved 2005 Topps Pristine Legends refractor frankenset. It's 140 cards deep (well, currently 139... I've still got an eye out for that final card), so it's a bit of a commitment. But part of the point is to prompt some easy-lifting posts for me to turn around my faltering goal of getting the annual post count up here.

Sometimes this series might cover multiple cards in one post, but a decent "PC guy" of mine like Vida Blue will likely warrant a full post to himself, seeing as I plan to take the opportunity to show off other favorite cards of that player in my collection. See, I had been thinking for a while now about doing something along the lines of the Diamond King's "Pick me a player" series, but instead of turning to readers, I'll just let the 2005 Topps Pristine Legends checklist pick the players for me, since around half are PC guys of mine anyways. (Though if any readers happen to be especially curious about seeing highlights of any certain PC of mine, and it's not a guy in 2005 Topps Pristine Legends, then by all means suggest away in the comments and I'll be happy to work up a post for you.)

I should mention I'll often refer to this project in shorthand as simply my "Pristine Legends" set instead of the full "2005 Topps Pristine Legends refractor" frankenset. The fact is it's the only Legends set that Pristine put out, with all the other releases under the product line featuring active players or a mix of active and retired. And it's my understanding that a current MLB or MLBPA licensing agreement stipulates no new set/product can be released featuring only retired players anymore, so that would seem to stand in the way of another Pristine Legends release ever coming out, even with (non-Legends) Topps Pristine seeing a return here in the Fanatics era. Hence if you just refer to a set as "Pristine Legends", there's not really another set to confuse it with. There's only 2005!

With that intro out of the way, here's Vida Blue... 

As this series continues, we'll see that Topps selected many photos for the set that are familiar thanks to being featured on other cards already (e.g. Rod Carew reprises an old Hostess photo), though this shot of Vida doesn't ring a bell. This was later on during his Oakland tenure, as opposed to his early 70s days as a young phenom. Mustached Vida doesn't appear on cardboard until 1976 oddballs, helping narrow this photo down to probably '76 or '77. It's a nice picture-- Vida was always game to fake a set/wind-up for a Topps photographer-- and one that could still look fine were it lightly edited due to a lack of licensing, thanks to only a couple visible "A's" bits poking out.

Here's a look at the card with softer refraction. The first 100 cards in the set are a subset of "The Legendary Years" featuring dudes in their MLB uniforms with a layout riffing on the classic 1965 Topps design. Later subsets to come are The College Years, The Negro Leagues, and The Early Years.

The backs are solid, with Vida's vitals, a sizzle-reel write-up, and a career stat line.  

He's still the most recent switch-hitter to win MVP, right?

There hasn't been another "Vida" in MLB, though there have been a few guys named Vidal.

He's not in the Hall of Fame, thanks to drug-addled off years knocking his career arch out of shape, but he has a higher career WAR than Harold Baines, so that makes him an honorary HOFer to many big-hall dreamers such as myself.

One of the first vintage cards I ever bought back in my childhood collecting days of the early 90s was a 1970 Topps Vida Blue / Gene Tenace rookie. I remember my local card shop had it priced at a few bucks, one of the less expensive offerings behind glass in the vintage section, and Vida Blue was a fun and slightly familiar name, which must have helped draw me to the card.

That '70 Topps card remains a personal favorite of mine and was among the holdovers after I jettisoned the bulk of my childhood collection before moving up to Portland. After returning to the hobby as an adult, I gradually built up a decent Vida Blue PC and still enjoy adding to it. 

 
Looks like I've nearly finished his flagship Topps run, and for what it's worth, I didn't raid any sets for this group pic, meaning I've got dupes of most of these in sets/builds, happy to say. Among other PC highlights I didn't get around to showing off in this post are some of his Kellogg's cards, a few OPC, and the 1983 Fleer "2-card puzzle" with Royals teammate Bud Black on the other card ("Black & Blue"). 

From 2015 into 2020, I did a bit of through-the-mail autograph requesting, usually using my own customs, and Vida was among my best returns. He charged $5 per card back then, totally reasonable. He signed the custom card I made using a slightly tweaked version of his old Time magazine cover, and he included a nice little note asking if I could send him a few extra copies of the custom, which I happily did.

My most-wanted Vida Blue card is his 2003 Topps Retired refractor autograph. Scoring that would complete the "Retired Refractor tRifecta" for me, already having '04 and '05. I have the drab base '03 auto, but dang it, really hope to upgrade to a colorful refractor version someday. 

I'll have a Blue Christmas... 
In fact, make it two. 

(Sorry for the bad photo, but above are [the backs of] my pair of 12/25 Vida autos. If you want a clearer look at his full stats, here's a handy link to his baseball-reference page.)

The rock band The Cult have a song called "Soldier Blue" on their 1989 album Sonic Temple. I owned the cassette, rocked it a lot in my youth, and loved to sing along to the chorus of "Soldier Blue" changing the titular lyrics to "Vida Blue!". LOL, not exactly Al Yankovic caliber stuff, but amusing to a kid (..well, a kid who happens to be a fan of both The Cult and Vida Blue). But no, really, if you make that subtle change to the lyrics ("Soldier"→"Vida"), it basically becomes a song about Vida's tumultuous relationship with Charlie Finley.

Speaking of music, there was later a jam band called Vida Blue featuring the keyboard player from Phish. Vida himself made an appearance at their 2004 gig at The Fillmore in San Francisco, apparently happy folks were still out there celebrating him. Sadly, he passed away from cancer in 2023 at age 73. 

Some oddballs to close out this salute to Mr. Blue, with another "Legends" card making a nice bookend for this initial post in my Pristine Legends blog series. Ready for #2? Bert Blyleven's on deck.

women and children

I haven't really gotten into the blog-posting groove yet here in the first half of 2026, but hey, just finally got the "we're packing your order" email from COMC, so I should have plenty of blog fodder on the way soon.

But for today, here are 3 various eBay pickups to show off.

I've probably got a couple thousand cards in my Guys From Granite minicollection, but this is my first Gal from Granite card. Also pretty sure it's my first MMA autograph. Juliana "Killer" Miller blipped on my radar earlier this year as a pro athlete who attended the same high school as me, and I was happy to discover she had some Leaf cards out there.

This one is #'d 4/6, but of course Leaf does the shtick where they put out a ton of parallels, most of which are low-numbered, so not even a 1/1 is all that big of a deal considering there are a bunch of 1/1s. But yeah, I'm happy with this purple refractor I ended up landing for a good price. Looks like Juliana's record is currently 4-4-0. Wishing her the best of luck with her career of hitting and kicking.

Ladies Night continues with the lovely Ms. Sign Here. Whoops, no, that's model/actress/artist Wrenna Monet and this card was sacrificed as an example to show her where to sign her stack of cards, and somehow it didn't end up in the trash, but rather in my card collection.

And the backside. From a quick googling, she's got a lot more tattoos now. I'm still tentatively planning to build my "Sign Here" minicollection to 9 cards, then I'll stick a fork in it and call it good at a page's worth. This is my 8th such card, so the hunt continues, but the conclusion could come any day now.

Speaking of penultimate cards...

Baby Bo here nearly finishes off my 2005 Topps Pristine Legends frankenset. Funny that Bo originally suited up as catcher in his youth. The Yankees drafted him in the second round of the 1982 draft before he accepted a football scholarship to Auburn instead. Think about that alternate reality where Bo Jackson skipped college football and instead became famous as the Yankees backstop. LOL

I'm building the 140-card set in non-base form.. which means the bulk of my set is refractors, plus several Gold refractors, which are all /65 with a "die cut" deckle edge. Reminiscent of vintage OPC, I could do without the rough edges of the Golds, but whatever. This one has some extra wear at the top, but I'm just happy to be done chasing this card. (The regular refractors of The Early Years subset are numbered to a scant /25, so the Golds are nearly three times as obtainable there, whereas for the rest of the set, the Golds are the tougher parallel.) Now I'm down to one pricey hurdle at the finish line, another Early Years card. That last need also happens to be the last card in the set's checklist, so maybe I'll start a blog series where I slowly feature my Pristine Legends frankenset a few cards at a time, and hopefully I'll have landed that final card by the time I get to the end.

Thanks for stopping by.

Peeling Protective Film (a handwritten post)

 

plain white envel-NOPE

Heads up for users of the online card marketplace Sportlots that "Loot" (seller-specific store credit) now expires after 90 days, and in case you haven't noticed, it's been about 85 days since that policy went into effect. So if you've ever used Sportlots much, you might want to log in and check out your loot account. Click "My Loot" under the "My Account" menu option in the upper left, and you get a list of sellers with whom you've got loot.

I've got a bunch of sellers listed there where I've only got a few cents of credit with them.. not a big deal to lose out on those few cents, but I've also got a couple sellers with over a buck in credit where it might make sense to at least make a small order from them to apply a discount towards so the loot doesn't go to waste.

Oh wait. They don't want you making small orders anymore:

"...Sportlots has implemented a Minimum Value Fee. Orders under $5.00 will incur a $1.50 fee. The $5.00 minimum is calculated by adding the card values, shipping, sales tax (if applicable), and subtracting any applied loot." 

So after adjusting for the Min Value Fee, my loot discount that should have been $1.68 comes to just 18¢. If I added a 5th card, hoping to get out of "under five bucks" territory, the shipping rate from this seller jumps from $1.50 to $4. So yeah, I'm screwed in this scenario. THANKS, Sportlots. Guess I'll just let all that loot disappear. Lame.

Sure, I make big orders on the site sometimes, but I like to place a small Sportlots order every once in a while, in part because it's nice receiving cards in the mail on the regular, you know? A day without cards in the mail is a downer. PWEs trickling in helps keep the non-card-getting days from piling up. 

Sellers can adjust their minimum shipping rates to deal with their transaction fees, so I don't think a minimum value fee is necessary. Hell, some sellers let you know they don't like doing small orders by having their minimum shipping rate be like $6 or more, even for just 1 card. But other sellers like making sales, the more the better, and don't want to just hold out for the occasional large order.

So yeah, just another instance of greed making things worse than they used to be. I know I've been saying it here for a long time, but this year FOR REALS i'm gonna get my for-trade cards logged into TCDB and try to focus more on trading, especially now that COMC and Sportlots have gotten crappier. Let's hope TCDB remains usable for the foreseeable future. I know they've been adding more annoying ads lately as the site owner looks to generate additional revenue, causing some users to grimace, but fingers crossed the site will last a long time before things really go tits up there. (With my luck, the site will be sold to PSA/Fanatics and get gutted the day after I finish logging all the stuff I'm planning on logging, LOL.)

Anyways. on that general topic, my latest TCDB swap netted 3 needs for my Dick Allen PC.

User herkojerko is a prominent Phillies collector on the site who proposed a 3-for-3 card swap, all Phillies, with my return being the above trio of Dick Allen needs. I showed off the Blue Ice parallel of that 2025 Prizm a few posts back, and so now I've got the base card to go with it, plus the 2025 Ginter SP #350 with child. Must've been Phillies dupes for herkojerko. One of the cards I sent his way was one of my Dick Allen dupes, fittingly, and helps him keep place as the #2 (tie) ranked DA collector on the site.

There's your current top 10 leader board. Absolutely fascinating stuff, right? :P

Thanks for the trade, herkojerko.. Good luck with your collection, just don't overtake me on Dick Allen cards, please. ha 

Before wrapping up, I've got another small piece of mail to show, a 1-card (plus a sticker) envelope imported from Japan.

Fun Maggie Simpson sticker along with a signed Royce Lewis card, courtesy of blogger bud Zippy Zappy. Royce seems to be a pretty good ballplayer who'd likely blossom into a star if only he could stay healthy for a while. Cool to add an early autograph of his. And as I said a moment ago, always brightens my day to receive cards in the mail, no matter the quantity. Thanks, Kenny!

TGI Mailday

Got cards in the mail from a few different sources today, helping it shape up into a pretty nice Friday afternoon. Let's whip up a quick post out of 'em.

As mentioned a couple weeks ago in the Tony Clark post, I'm working on a set of 1998 Bowman refractor reprints. Here we see a couple young sluggers from 1990 Bowman, secured from different ebay sellers coincidentally showing up at the same time.

On the topic of refractin' reprints, I've also been working on my ARMS.. Yep, my quest for an Archives Reverse Master Set is still slowly chugging away. I only have 109 cards left to go, which doesn't seem like such a huge number, but it's all autos and relics left, which leads to financial complexity, as I don't need to tell you readers. I'll likely not complete the football portion in my lifetime at current rate of acquisition, but maybe if I focus on the 2 baseball releases...?

TOP PRIORITY alert! 1972 Topps high numbers. I've been racing Crocodile to see who can finish our '72 Topps sets first. I'm down to 22 needs remaining, but I think he's gonna pass me. One of these was from a tcdb trade and the other was a Greg Morris ebay win (the only one of many '72s I bid on from that particular setbreak that I actually ended up with, grrr).

Here's the rest of the TCDb trade. I reached out to user ejholmes76 because I was after the '72 Traded Cardenal he had available, and our trade matching shook out nicely to a PWE swap of cards changing hands, to which he agreed, and that also netted me a '64 need (108 cards left, 81.66% complete on 1964 Topps). The '75s I already had in my set (surprisingly still down to only needing only a Reds team card [Sparky Anderson] but out of spite I haven't bought one yet, choosing to hold my breath until I get one by sheer luck), but I needed this pair of '75 dupes for PCs. (Thanks for the trade, Eric, if you're reading.)

And finally, here's the rest of the Greg Morris spoils: a double blast of Hoyt! I realized the other day that I should make a point of completing his Topps run. Well, the '52 Topps high number rookie card is unlikely to ever grace my collection in non-reprint form, but otherwise this goal is within reach, especially after landing this '62 Topps. Now really just need 1958 Topps and 1960 Topps (An extra '72 Topps for the PC would be nice, but it's a dang high number, so I might be content to "share" with the setbuild because who cares at the end of the day as long as I got one in the greater collectionscape.)

Oh, and the other card is my first 1953 Red Man. Looks good! I don't normally go after oversized pieces such as this, but ya gotta stretch outside your comfort zone for your top PC guys sometimes. And hey, does anyone have a running list of baseball cards where they put eyeliner on the player? You can put this one on it along with Dave Winfield's 1980 Topps plus several of the 3-player prospects at the end of 1979 Topps. Seriously, have you taken a close look at them? It's kinda weird, right? But yeah, whatever. Neat card and nice addition to the Wilhelm PC.

Enjoy the weekend, all!