One-third of the cash, all of the fun

 

As I've mentioned a number of times, I devote two-thirds of the money I receive for magazine writing to savings.

Working for a newspaper doesn't generate enough funds to even match a teacher's salary, so that cash comes in handy for real-life costs.

The other third goes toward cards and those funds in the last couple of years have boosted my collecting in a significant way.

You saw probably the flashiest card that I bought with my most recent article earnings, the 1956 Harmon Killebrew. But there were other cards that I bought with those latest funds, too.

I moved closer to completing the 1978 Kellogg's set with a selection of six more cards from the set. With these latest cards I'm down to needing just four more cards to finish it.

Those last few cards are Eddie Murray, Larry Bowa, Tommy John and Dave Parker. I have both Murray and Bowa in my cart right now. And I'm sure I'll track down John and Parker in no time.

But enough about the stragglers. This post is about what I GOT.

Here are the first Blue Jays and Mariners to appear on Kellogg's 3-D cards. That's how you knew you made it as an expansion club. Forget those Topps cards, were you being retrieved out of a cereal box??

 

 

I've purchased this Gossage card before. It made the Greatest Cards of the 1970s countdown on the occasion of it being one of the very few cards to show Gossage in an actual Pittsburgh Pirates uniform.

Then the card, as it sat unwittingly in a binder, mysteriously cracked -- always a possibility with those 3-D cards. I've since housed all my '70s Kellogg's cards in toploaders only, and that seems to have erased cracking issues. And that's where the new Gossage will go.

 

 

Lastly, the late great Tom Seaver, to go with the late great Don Sutton at the top of the post. Man, losing dominant pitchers of my childhood is still heart-wrenching. I want everyone to keep an eye on Vida Blue, Frank Tanana and Steve Carlton and, of course, Nolan Ryan.

Per usual, I need to spread out my cash on the wide-variety of collection pursuits that I have. So the last card I'm showing has nothing to do with mid-1970s food issues.

 

It is the second-to-last Dodgers need for my quest to complete the 1960 Topps team set.

Wooo!

The only card left is the high-numbered Tommy Davis and I'm tracking a copy right now.

The 1960 team set is notable because Topps never issued a larger team set for the Dodgers in its history. It produced 37 Dodgers cards that year! And that's not even counting the World Series cards it issued that also featured the Dodgers.

I devoted a post three years ago toward the number of Topps Dodgers cards each year. It's time that I update that post with the sets that followed:

2018: 32 cards

2019: 24

2020: 28

The 32 cards in 2018 is tied for the fourth-most highest for the Dodgers in Topps history. The total was boosted by the individual league leader cards that year, Clayton Kershaw was on three of them alone.

Here are the revised top 10 years for total Dodgers cards:

1960: 37

1959: 35

1952: 33

1982: 32

1991: 32

2018: 32

1964: 31

1972: 31

1986: 31

1987: 31

 

I see 2021 crashing through that top 10 by this summer. There are already 20 Dodger cards in Series 1.

 

OK, that's it for this post, but that's not it for the cards I purchased with the latest magazine earnings. I'm saving those for a post next week.