Progress on my 1955 Bowman set

I posted the other day about being nearly finished with my 1972 Topps set, so I thought I'd give an update on how I'm doing with my 1955 Bowman set as well.

Jocko Conlan.

I focused my Black Friday shopping on knocking out 1972 Topps needs, but I did buy a few 1955 Bowman cards.  And this Jocko Conlan, the Hall of Fame umpire, just arrived in the mail yesterday from an eBay seller.  Jocko here puts me at 178/320 cards, or 55.6% complete.  The high numbers are about the last one-third of the set, so about 106 cards or so, and I have 26 of those.  I have two of the four highest-value cards -- of Mantle, Aaron, Banks, and Mays, I have the Mantle and Aaron.  So, my plan is to keep slogging through it for the next year, sometimes getting the more expensive cards while focusing on completing the more easily attainable part of the set.  I don't expect I'll quite finish the whole set in 2020 but I hope to be much closer.

Jocko Conlan card back.

As for Conlan himself, on the one hand, I think everyone likes these umpire cards and I'm no exception.  On the other hand, besides the novelty of the umpire cards, I learned from this card back that Conlan was actually a player himself, and started umpiring when he filled in for a sick umpire.  Wikipedia says that in those days, "a player with a reputation for honesty might be pressed into service if one umpire became incapacitated."  It was a different time, for sure.

Thanks for reading!

Closing in on my 1972 Topps set

Only nine cards left!  I am currently at 778 cards out of 787 for my 1972 Topps set; the remaining nine cards are all high numbers, naturally.  I won't list out the ones I need here because I don't want anyone sending me any cards -- I want to finish on my own.

Steve Garvey.

Jim Kaat In Action.

This feels really great; I always wanted to collect a vintage set.  Back circa 1990 I was working on a 1979 set and didn't get far.  With everyone focused on buying and selling the junk cards of the day and it being pre-internet, it was harder to come across large quantities of older cards.  So now it's easier, and I've done it (almost!).  While I'm sure it's easier, it's still taken me more than two years.

I was at about 40 cards needed recently, and then got to this point by putting some money into both COMC and eBay on Black Friday.  These two cards, Steve Garvey and an In Action card of Jim Kaat, arrived in the mail from an eBay seller yesterday.  I don't have definite plans as to when to knock out the last 9 cards, but I think I'll probably do it in January or February.

Thanks for reading!