How many cards can you get on a tank of gas?

Last month, amid all of the work tasks performed in those 30 days, I found myself driving about 70 miles to talk to someone for a part-time job opening.

Why I had to drive that far for a part-time job candidate doesn't matter -- well, it does matter but if I think about it too much, I'll get upset. What matters is this person decided right during my talk with him that he had no interest in the job. So, that was fun, 140 miles total for no damn reason.

Later in the month, I drove about the same number of miles for another work function, an annual dinner, the organization of which I'm sure takes months, if not years, off my life.

But now the payoff.

I received a gas reimbursement check a couple of weeks later for 80 bucks. Oh, boy, cards here I come.

I usually don't reserve my gas reimbursement for cards. I don't travel all that much for my job anymore, so there's no need to create that kind of budget (when I did travel a lot for my job, I wasn't collecting -- again, if I think about that too much, I'll get upset). So, this was a special treat. And, a way for me to see how many cards I can get on a tank of gas -- which was about how much I used on those two round trips.

One COMC order later, I had my answer.

However, it wasn't a question of "how many," it turns out but a question of "what kind?" (I'm steering more and more toward quality instead of quantity).

What kind of cards can you get on a tank of gas reimbursement money?

Well, you can get four more 1975 Topps buybacks for the project. Note that they are all different buyback stamps, although that doesn't matter to me at all. What matters is I now have 241 cards from the '75 Topps set in buyback form.

To my surprise, I was also able to land a bunch of 1976 Kellogg's cards with my gas money. I had considered some '76 Hostess cards but the Kellogg's cards were much more snazzy in my eyes as a kid. And look what I found!

Outstanding.

Every one of these players is a key figure from my childhood. I read about them, saw them play (even one or two in person), saw movies made about them, marveled over them. They were and always will be larger than life.

Most are in fantastic shape, which is a little amazing to me considering how cheap they were. Only the LeFlore and Munson have some nicks.

With these additions, I have about one-third of the set complete. It's time for me to put a want list up to go with the Hostess one. Also, I will be putting these in top loaders with the rest of the '76 Kellogg's I own. Man, do they look great that way.

So, there was still quite a bit of gas money left over after those pickups.

I nabbed the Cody Bellinger Finest "Sitting Red" card because Finest designs some cards that I absolutely can't resist.

And I also found these two cards:

Wow.

I didn't do any kind of tricks with the scanning and cropping. Both of these cards do have sharp corners (and have not been trimmed).

Well, relatively sharp anyway.

The point is, I never imagined getting a '57 Hodges and especially a '57 Campanella that look like this for the prices I paid with a portion of a month's worth of gas reimbursement money. Sure, they're a little off-center. DO YOU THINK I CARE?????

No.

With the addition of those two Brooklyn heavyweights, all that I need to complete the 1957 Topps Dodgers set is one Mr. Koufax.

I don't expect to be buying that with a couple hour trips in the car.

But who knows? It's obvious this hobby is full of surprises.

When I was all done with this purchase, I had 3 dollars left over.