The road to 500

 

Like I mentioned a couple of week ago, the 1975 Topps buyback game has reached a new level since 2024 Heritage came out.

What has been mostly a down-low pursuit, in which I have been grabbing buybacks here and there for the last seven years sometimes at a rate of a handful per year, is now like chasing buybacks on speed.

New '75 buybacks, buybacks that I need -- not the same damn Bobby Heise buyback over and over -- are up for sale all over ebay. And I've been on that stupid site at a rate the last few weeks that I haven't been on since before the blog had begun.

I don't like being on ebay that much, especially when it comes to bidding. I already have a low impression of humanity without having to go through that. But for chasing down more buybacks from my favorite set of all-time? Sure, I'll wallow.

Before Heritage came out, I owned 481 of the 660 cards in the set in buyback form. I knew that with what I saw available, I could get to 500 pretty quickly. So join me now on the road to 500 or 75.75757576% of the set with a buyback stamp defacing the card.

First, to set the scene, the first buyback I purchased from Heritage was the Chris Chambliss card up top. That's a pretty good get based on what I have been able to acquire since I started this. So that sparked me on what could be possible.

Let's continue.

482nd buyback. Another pretty notable one. Yankees are always tough and his DH reputation always commands a few extra cents.

483rd buyback. One of the mind-boggling aspects of this chase is what cards I had never seen buybacks before -- so-called run-of-the-mill players like Vicente Romo. This recent binge has taken care of that to some extent.

484th buyback. Another Dodger off the buyback list is a great thing. Also, note that Topps is avoiding stamping over the picture (or a player's head), like in past buyback editions, by placing it over the baseball in the lower right corner.

485th buyback. Another player who had puzzled me by how he had been able to avoid the buyback stamp.

486th buyback. I had assumed Swisher was a toughie because his son was playing Major League ball. But that's no longer the case.

487th buyback. These are in order of their arrival not in order by how I purchased them, FYI. That will be important later.

488th buyback.

489th buyback. What took you so long, Murph?

490th buyback. Super-pleased about this one. It was an early win and I've noticed high prices on some of the cult heroes of the '70s such as Bake.

491st buyback. Another early win and another key one.

492nd buyback.

493rd buyback. This arrived very quickly and in my frantic state of waiting, such a seller talent became very important.

494th buyback. I remember one particularly painful loss and then seeking out this card as a BIN just to take the hurt away. I may have paid a little too much.

495th buyback.

496th buyback.

497th buyback. This card actually arrived earlier, when the Reggie Cleveland card arrived as I got them from the same seller. But I didn't realize until days later that the Lemancyzk was stuffed behind Cleveland in the same top-loader. Good thing I don't care about condition on these.

498th buyback. Woooo! Super key one. One of my most favorite cards in the set.

Notice that the buyback stamp for horizontal cards is in the lower left corner. That isn't cool for team cards as the stamp lands squarely on the manager's inset photo.

499th buyback. This arrived today.

Notice, though, that I haven't shown the Chambliss card in the count up.

Even though that's the first Heritage buyback I bought, I waited and waited and waited for it. I had pretty much chalked it up to likely being lost in the mail, but I had not contacted the seller or anything yet.

Good thing. Because also today -- 

500th buyback.

It finally arrived. It just wanted its moment.

 

Chambliss was the only buyback card that showed up with extras (always appreciate extras). I think I have each of these four already, but keep doing that, sellers.

 

My trip through the world of Heritage buybacks has opened my eyes into how insanely inflated the prices are on a lot of these things. There were plenty of times where I though, "wooo, glad I got that one a long time ago! And glad I got that one a long time ago, too! And, yikes! Why is that selling for that!"

 

Then there are the cards I don't have yet. I saw the George Foster stamped card selling for $97.00. I saw a checklist selling for $100!!!

 

And forget about this one (at least for now):

 

 

The MVP cards go for prices I don't want to pay. Unlike the earlier buybacks, there are a number of star buyback cards (though I've seen Brett only once and Yount and Ryan not at all), and they're all pricey -- much pricier than a regular unstamped '75 card of the player.

So I've halted my chase in the meantime because I'm going to have to figure out soon what I want to do once the "easy" cards are all gone. But I mostly halted because I need to go back to other pursuits that don't involve defacing cards. 

 

Still, there are a few more buybacks on the way from the latest binge and when they're all here, I will have reached 77 percent.

I have wanted to add all these recent cards to the buyback portion of my '75 Topps binder for weeks. Now that this post is out, I can.