Recent Acquisition: Maury Wills

I've said many times that I started seriously collecting with the 1987 Topps set.  I was finishing 6th grade that spring, and my friends and I would ride our bikes (or walk) to the local 7-Eleven and buy wax packs.  I have about 3,000 1987 Topps cards, give or take, with a large proportion of them purchased that summer.  Much about that set is burned into my memory, including all the subsets, like Turn Back the Clock.

This past summer, two things happened to get me to start collecting again.  My wife and I have moved about every three years for the past 15 years, but we finally have settled into what we think is our permanent home.  On buying this house, I reclaimed my collections from my parents' house, and put them in order.  Second, I realized that being an adult with an income, unlike in the 80s and early 90s, I could buy things I always wanted.  I immediately went after a Jackie Robinson card from his playing days, and a Mike Schmidt rookie card.  

1963 Fleer Maury Wills, graded PSA 7.

Another card I thought I'd pick up, then, was a 1962 Topps Maury Wills card, like on that 1987 Topps Turn Back the Clock card.  Now, everyone reading this surely knows the story about that 1962 Topps card not actually existing.  But it came as something of a shock to me this past summer when I looked into getting one.  Information like that wasn't readily available to a kid in 1987.  It raised the question, then, what card of Maury Wills could I get?  And 1963 Fleer is the clear answer.  So I put this on my wantlist, and just got one.  I decided to put this in the PSA-graded portion of my wantlist.  I'm getting a small selection of older cards that are protected in slabs, and my typical goal for condition is PSA 7.

Card back.

I really like the card back, too.  I like the green border, the life story, and the two columns of stats.  Perhaps the card number, 43 here, takes up too much real estate.  But it's not like there's anything that's especially missing that should go in that space.

This is both my first Maury Wills card (other than Turn Back the Clock) and my first 1963 Fleer card.  I'm happy to have them both represented in my collection.  In addition to representing 1963 Fleer, this card also is a good addition because I'm fond of the base stealers; I have an old card of Bill Bruton in my collection, and recently have picked up a few of Richie Ashburn, and one of Jackie Robinson.  I also have one old card of Pee Wee Reese, and I have some old and new of Willie Mays, and several of Lou Brock.  With this, a good card of Maury Wills in my collection, the NL base stealing champs from 1947 through 1969 are all represented in my collection now, with one exception, Sam Jethroe.  I'll work on getting a good card of Jethroe.

PS: This is my 200th post!  It's a coincidence, but it happens to be similar to my 100th post, in that's it's a post of a single vintage PSA-graded card that I just bought.  For the 100th post, it was my 1951 Bowman Richie Ashburn.  Thanks for reading!