Recent Acquisitions: A Few 1960s Cards

My recent COMC box contained cards for most of my different goals, and some goals I didn't know I had until I bought the cards.  A main goal, though, is adding a few cards to fill out the front of my binder.  When I was a kid, the other kids I knew and I all had one binder that we put our best cards in.  At some point I started a second binder for my best (then)-current year cards.  But my main binder is where I have my favorite cards.  When I resumed collecting last year, I added a few more pages to the front of the binder for the oldest cards, and I'm now filling in the last slots.

Bill Bruton.

I had one 1962 Topps card before, of Robin Roberts, who was Dad's favorite growing up.  Since the whole 1987 Topps set is imprinted on me, I also have fond memories of the 1962 Topps "card that never was" featured on the Maury Wills turn-back-the-clock card.  I thought I would double the number of cards I had from 1962, and decided to get a standard-sized Bill Bruton.  I have two other Bruton cards, the 1953 Topps that I believe I pulled from a "grab bag" at Stale Gum, an old card shop in Newark, DE, in my very early collecting days, and a 1962 Post card I got several months ago.  The 1953 Topps doesn't fit in the pages at the front of the binder, and the 1962 Post is an oddball, so it doesn't fit thematically at the front of the binder. 

Bruton is a favorite for a few reasons: like me, he's a Delawarean.  He was one of MLB's early black players.  I've always been a fan of the base stealers, and he led the NL in steals his first three seasons.  And his personal story is interesting, that he got into playing ball late, and left early: he might have been able to keep playing a while longer, but retired when he got an offer to be an executive at Chrysler.

Hank Aaron.

Al Kaline.

Man, these 1967 Topps cards are beautiful.  This is my first good Al Kaline card.  I'm not an American League guy, but I did want to get some decent representation of the legendary Tiger into my collection, other than things like Baseball Immortals.  It's not my first good card of Aaron, but this is now my oldest card of him. 

Lou Brock.

And I'll close this out with another of the base stealing kings, the former career record holder, the great Lou Brock.  I have a handful of 1969 Topps in the binder already, but they're mostly standard cards (of Bob Gibson, Harmon Killebrew, and Juan Marichal), and also Al Oliver's rookie card.  I wanted to mix it up a little and got this, an All-Star card. 

Thanks for reading!  My posting is fairly infrequent these days as work is busy.  But I do enjoy when I have the time for a post.