Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Desperate steps with '72 Topps

A recent sportlots order pushed me over 3/4 complete with 1972 Topps. I then decided to crank up the priority on this setbuild and take the plunge of raiding my player-collections to find needs.


Jackson, Clemente, and Wilhelm are "inner circle" names in my collection. It'd be tough for me to rank my PCs subjectively, but these three would surely be in my personal Top 10, perhaps even spending time in the top spot for a while. (Though these days Tony Gwynn is pretty much locked in as my #1.) So subtracting from the PCs is not a step taken lightly, but damn it, I'd really like to finish off '72 Topps soon and these cards aren't easy gets! In a perfect world I'll end up with dupes to replace these '72s in the PCs before long, but if it doesn't happen, I can live with that. Oh wait, just remembered Reggie is actually an upgrade; the lesser-condition card that was in the setbuild can now get bumped to the PC, preserving my complete career run of Reggie's base Topps cards. Not likely I'll ever achieve similar with Roberto and Hoyt thanks to their very expensive rookie cards, so I suppose it stings less to steal from those PCs. (If you missed it, my previous post told the story of acquiring Reggie's rookie).



Some more needs that were technically haves all along, with Clemente making another appearance (still never had his In Action card where he's apparently grimacing over a called third strike.) Turns out I have 2 of the NL HR leaders card; Hank Aaron PC gets the dupe, but Stargell could use one too.



Here's the sportlots haul. Hate paying a few bucks a pop for commons, but when going after '72 high numbers, it's just something you have to accept.



Here's the cream of the crop as far as my current trade bait goes. Perhaps somebody reading has a nice cache of '72 high numbers available and/or some of the big cards in the set I'm needing* and would be interested in working out a deal involving any of these autos.

* such as #49 Willie Mays, 299 Hank Aaron, 300 Hank Aaron IA, 310 Roberto Clemente IA, 550 Brooks Robinson, 559 Pete Rose, 595 Nolan Ryan, 600 Al Kaline, 620 Phil Niekro, 686 Steve Garvey, 695 Rod Carew, 696 Rod Carew IA, 751 Steve Carlton TR, 752 Joe Morgan TR, 754 Frank Robinson TR, 761 Ben Oglivie/Ron Cey RC.

Anyhoo, here's the link to my 1972 Topps needs spreadsheet.. feel free to get in touch regarding a trade.

How about you guys? What are your thoughts about raiding PCs (or team sets or whatever) to get cards for a set you're working on? Do you have steadfast guidelines regarding what gets priority, or do you take it on a case-by-case basis?

8 comments:

  1. I have a few 72s sitting around at home. I can't access you WL (at work), but will look when I get home. I think I have an extra Aaron IA. I just finished the 72 set myself a couple months ago. I thankfully got the big ticket ones done before pandemic pricing kicked in. Local shows and great dealers helped. The last beast of a card for me was the high number Orioles team card. Took months of finding one decently priced, and when it popped up on eBay, well.... Just need a couple green Cubs to finish off the master set. To answer the question, I'm a set builder first, PC second so any needs would go to the set first.

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  2. Better copies go to PC, lesser ones to the set...Will let you know if I have any '72s you need.

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  3. For me, the set build is always the priority and the nicer card. If I ever get to the point where I'm building vintage sets with anything I can find, that might be revisited.

    Right now the question is do my PCs get priority over other set wants/needs, like that 2003 Killebrew! Do I raid my PCs to try to get it?

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  4. Reggie's in my top 10 as well.

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  5. I dont have too many player PCs so set builds always get top priority. Mostly because it's much easier to complete a set than a player collection.

    Good luck with your '72 set build! That Willie Stargell In Action card is on my vintage 'bucket list' and I'm hoping to find one by the end of the year. And I'm still kicking myself for flipping my PSA 8 Fergie on COMC for an extra $1.50 or so. Shoulda brought that one home :/

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  6. My complete '72 set is my pride and joy. I don't have PC player collections, I barely comprehend the concept, so everything goes to the set-build and anything left over is trade bait. Unfortunately all my '72 trade bait is gone.

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  7. Although I consider myself a team and player collector more than a set collector... if it came down to a set needing a few singles and they were sitting in player/team collections, I'd have no problem pulling them out and calling the set complete.

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  8. This hasn't been an issue for me yet. Where I do have overlap it costs me maybe a buck. Though until I rectify things I keep the cards in my team or PC binder since I look at those more than the sets.

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