Don't forget about me

Putting a task together of building the sets between 1968 and 1986 has taken up most of my time, and card budget.  I've made pretty good headway with a lot of those sets, finishing a few of them and getting close on 3 or 4 others.   I've enjoyed putting them together, but have kind of put aside one set that I worked hard on for quite a while.

1959 Topps.  Great looking set, one of the best of the early years of Topps in my opinion.  This week while surfing eBay I decided to start grabbing a few cards to try and knock off some of the $2-$3 needs that have been on the list for quite a long time.

Jackie Jensen is card #400 in the set, usually reserved for a bigger star, so I took a quick look at the stats on the back.  Jackie had quite a solid season in '58, 35 HR and 122 RBI's for the Red Sox, while hitting .286.  '58 was the 4th season out of the past 5 that he'd drove in over 100 (just missing in '56 with 97 RBI's), and his numbers earned him the AL MVP award.

Smoky Burgess was right in the middle of an 18 year career in 1959, and had been acquired by the Pirates as part of a 7 player trade that saw slugger Frank Thomas head to the Redlegs.

 
The other 2 cards I bought were a pair of Yankees, which cost a bit more than commons, not unusual for older sets.  The Virgil Trucks card is actually his sunset card, as his career came to end in '58, pitching 41 games at the ripe old age of 41.  Art Ditmar was right in the middle of a 9 season career, playing 3 more seasons in the Bronx before finishing his career with 2 seasons in KC.

4 cards off of the want list drops the set down to 91 cards to go, and it was nice to get a few of these in hand at the same time. One day I'll finish this set, but there's a lot of cards, and $$ left to go.

Just have to remember not to forget about the set....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert