First Blogiversary; 245th Post; Roberto Clemente Acquisitions

It's been one year of blogging for me today.

My original goal was to tell stories about the cards I bought as a kid, with the idea that my son (who is now 3 years old) might one day read them.  Collecting cards was the best part of my childhood, and I wanted to get some of that down in writing.  Things quickly evolved, though.  While the original goal still holds, I also started a vigorous program of adding to my collection.  I posted as part of a blog bat-around what I was working on with my collection.  I originally said that I felt that I was working on completing my collection, and I think at this point, it's almost complete.  In the bat-around post, I said I was working on completing my main binder and some small player collections, and that's all done now with my most recent COMC shipment.  I am working on a 1972 Topps set, so that I can say that I've put together one vintage set on my own.  I'm about half done with that and will see it through.  I said I was starting to work on a 1959 Topps set, but I've decided to cancel that plan.  The 1972 set plus a few select 1959 cards will be enough for me.  Other than the 1972 Topps set, the only big thing I still plan to do is finish my small PSA-graded subcollection.  I have about 30 cards there, and have a plan to get about 30 more, over time.

While I feel like my program of adding to my collection is winding down, I do plan to keep blogging, perhaps for as much as a couple of years.  I think I have more to say about the cards I do have.

For now, I will show four cards of The Great One, Roberto Clemente, that came in my recent COMC box.

1970 Topps Super Roberto Clemente.

1970 Topps Roberto Clemente.

I posted a while ago some 1971 Topps Supers that I picked up from eBay.  The point of getting them was in part to get the 1971 Clemente Super, and in part to get any of the older Topps Supers.  (I had some 1981 Topps Supers before, which I showed here and here.)  Knowing that there was a 1970 Super of Clemente, I naturally wanted that as well.  So here it is.  I also picked up the regular Topps 1970 card of Clemente; in my original collection, I had the 1971, 1972, and 1973 cards of him.  I object to any card which calls him "Bob" rather than his name, Roberto, so I am uninterested in most other Topps cards of him.  In 1970, though, they were back to calling him Roberto, so this is a good pickup for me.

1994 Yoo-Hoo Rawlings Gold Glove Roberto Clemente.

My original collection stops at 1994, although I mainly switched to collecting comics around 1991 or so.  Still, seeing these 1994 Yoo-Hoo cards on COMC, I had to pick up a few.  I've posted many cards in my collection that were sponsored by various food products, like cereals, sodas, and fast food chains, among others, and adding some Yoo-Hoo cards seemed like a natural choice.  So of course Clemente was one of the Yoo-Hoo set I chose to pick up to represent this set in my collection.  Clemente won 12 Gold Gloves for his play in right field.

1972 Topps Roberto Clemente.

Finally, like I said, I'm working on a 1972 set, but I already had the 1972 Topps card of Clemente.  I decided to pick up a second copy, so that my old, beat up version can stay at home in my main binder.  While the 1973 card is my all-time favorite card because it's the first good card that Dad and I bought together, I have to think that this 1972 might be just about the greatest baseball card of all time.  In addition to the card itself, I have fond memories of it from the 1987 Topps Turn Back the Clock subset, since 1987 Topps is the set that got me seriously collecting in the first place.

Thanks for reading!  It's been a good year.