Fork in the buyback road

  

Here is the other 1975 Topps-focused post I wanted to get to before the 50th anniversary year is over.

 

I've reached sort of a milestone in the 1975 Topps buyback chase. It's been exactly 10 years since I first decided to collect these and see how far I could get. I admit I've gotten farther than I thought I would, particularly when I was first starting the mission. But my approach has always been to keep pressing on. As long as I kept finding new ones -- and I can still afford them -- I'd continue.

 

I just went over 82 percent of the set in buyback form with the addition of three cards. One is the Bob Forsch here.

 

 

 

These are the other two. I now have 542 of the 660 cards in the set in buyback form.

 

These three cards would be considered "commons" by most collectors, but they mean much more than that. All three have puzzled me for years. I couldn't figure out why they were so elusive. None are particularly notable. I'd reason that I couldn't find Forsch because it's his rookie card, but except for a couple of years he wasn't a star. I also reasoned that Dave Giusti was so elusive because he was a member of the 1971 World Series champion Pirates team. All of those guys are popular.

 

But Dan Spillner? No one could possibly value that card like I did when I pulled it out of a pack on a hot summer day while on vacation out of town. Why was it on my want list so long?

 

These 3 cards felt like such an achievement that I thought I'd write a post about the most inexplicably elusive buybacks in the chase.

 

Then I realized that I now had almost all of those kinds of cards. Just about everything left is very explicable. I know why I don't have them. There is just one common character that I don't own that is somewhat confusing, though I know the answer.

 

 

Card #14. I haven't been able to find it anywhere during the 10 years. However, now it's understandable because Topps didn't make any Indians cards available when it created buybacks for the 2024 Heritage set. Milt Wilcox sits among Oscar Gamble and Frank Robinson as '75 buybacks I may never get.

 

But there's still a shot, because I have plenty of Indians buybacks:

 

There are all from 2014 and 2015 -- i.e. before they became the Guardians. Why Wilcox wasn't in that initial bunch, I have no idea. Or maybe I just missed him.

 

But now that I have obtained all of the "low-hanging fruit," I am at the fork in the buyback road. To illustrate, here is my remaining want list:

 

Every one of these is either a Hall of Famer, an All-Star card, a rookie prospects card, rookie cup dudes, team checklists and set checklists, and a few "cult figures" like Dwight Evans, Boog Powell and Fritz Peterson. (A few years ago, I bolded the ones I had seen somewhere online but there are several others I've spotted since).

 

I still have hopes of finding guys like Buddy Bell, Davey Lopes and Claudell Washington but otherwise I've reached decision time.

 

Do I increase the amount I pay for these? A lot of the ones left are available. I've seen them. Usually for too much money. I have upped the average amount I pay over the years. Once I refused to pay no more than 2 bucks -- they were marred by a stamp! As the Heritage buybacks popped up on sale sites,  I realized I'd have to throw as much as 10 bucks at many of them.

 

Now, if I want what's left, I'm going to have to pay $15, $20, $30, $50 or more. Yeah, that's ridiculous. But this is also a ridiculous quest. So it makes sense in a way.

 

My guess is that I'll still try to add them, it just won't be as often and they will arrive in my collection at a much slower rate, one at a time. All the while I know I'll never get buyback cards like Pete Rose and Robin Yount, but that won't stand in my way.

 

It's been too fun the last 10 years chasing them down.