 |
 |
There are a few glorious color inserts among the pages of the The Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide (Number 4), first published in 1982, containing photos of baseball card wrappers and examples of what each of the popular baseball card sets released up until 1981 looked like. That's probably the first time I set eyes on the design of a 1956 Topps baseball card, with the iconic Jackie Robinson (#30) card selected by the guide's authors as the representative of that set. At the time, and as a young collector who hadn't yet turned 10, the images on those pages represented a very distant past, showing cards I'd likely never see except for under glass display cases at the Ocean City Baseball Card Show, let only one day own.
So when the Magic Shoebox entered my life in the summer of 1983 (or was it 1984?), and the cards within that shoebox officially entered my collection, it kicked off a journey of collecting vintage baseball card sets that continues to this day. I've shared this story a few times on a few of my different blogs, and the core memory moment came in the summer of 1987 when my Dad turned to me in a shop in Cooperstown while holding a few 1956 Topps cards for sale and casually asked, "Why don't we try to put together the whole set?"
 |
 |
The journey of collecting the 1956 Topps set took us just over 20 years. The set build started when I was about to enter junior high school in 1987, and it ended in 2007 when our first son had just turned one and my Dad's health had just started to fail. My Dad passed away in October 2011. In need of a new creative outlet and as a way to revisit each of the 342 cards in the set, I started this blog four years later in October 2015. Our first-born son was about to turn nine, and our youngest son, who mostly remembers his grandfather through stories and pictures, was already 5 1/2.
Life intruded a few times over the years in the life of this blog, and it laid mostly dormant for almost all of 2017 and 2018, before coming back on a more regular basis in 2019. I settled in on a fairly consistent routine of trying to post a new card each Friday at 7am, and I stuck to that schedule for about four years before slowing down again in 2023. The blog benefitted from the Covid lockdown as time previously occupied by my commute to and from work was now filled with "play" time on my blogs, as my wife affectionately calls it. Getting towards the end of this blog caused me to slow down, and once I saw the end was near, I was hit with a sudden desire to not finish this thing up.
 |
| August 16, 1987 - Cooperstown, NY |
The answer of course, is that I'll start another blog. I'm not breaking any ground with these posts and player summaries. There's nothing here that isn't otherwise readily available and better written on other platforms, but I've come to find I enjoy this kind of thing and as long as it brings me enjoyment, why not keep going? For reasons I've already partially explained elsewhere, I'll be going card by card through the 1955 Bowman set next.
I'll have one more post on this blog after this one, featuring the second checklist of the two checklists, which I consider to be part of the overall set. That post will contain some helpful navigating tools and links for any future visitors. I love the idea of some kid 50 years from now stumbling upon this blog and wanting to learn more about baseball or baseball cards or anything about Richie Ashburn (#120) or Willie Mays (#130) or Wayne Terwilliger (#73). I especially love the idea that someone may find this in the future or distant future and grasp how much this baseball card set and how much my Dad and his collecting this set with me, meant to me. I'm forever grateful.
Building the Set
December 28, 2007 from Dad's eBay purchases - Card #342
The way my Dad and I finished the 1956 Topps set was somewhat anti-climatic but nevertheless a joyful memory. Leading up to the Christmas of 2007, my Dad (with the help of my Mom) scoured eBay and other online baseball card stores for the remaining 29 cards we needed to complete the set. Throughout the weeks and months leading up to the holidays, he knew we had completed the set but he kept it quiet, wanting to surprise me on Christmas morning. I have no idea, and I'll never know, what the true last card was that he acquired to finish off the set. And I have no record, nor was he able to tell me, how much they had paid for any of these final 29 cards.
Our son Doug had just turned one, and on Christmas morning 2007, we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our families to our house to celebrate the day. I've had a few rough Christmases, but this was one of the worst as my Dad ended up in the hospital that day and it was the beginning of his health struggles that would continue until he passed away in late 2011. He was discharged from the hospital three days later, and it was only then we celebrated Christmas together, on December 28th, and I opened the package containing the last of the cards needed for our 1956 Topps set.
Dad was understandably distraught that Christmas, but not solely because of his own health issues. Because of his unselfish nature, he was worried that he had ruined Christmas for everyone since we had spent the holidays in a hospital. He was also upset that his surprise package containing those last 29 baseball cards sat in the back seat of his car for three days until he recovered enough to come home. I was just happy to have him out of the hospital, but I do remember feeling confused and somewhat hopeless as we weren't quite sure yet what was wrong with him.
I don't have any pictures from December 28th, which is unusual for me. I'm assuming I was just happy that Dad was out of the hospital and taking pictures never crossed my mind. Among the "big" cards in that final haul were the cards of Roberto Clemente (#33), Monte Irvin (#194), Whitey Ford (#240), Pee Wee Reese (#260) and this pristine checklist card.
December 28, 2007 from Dad's eBay purchases - Card #342
The way my Dad and I finished the 1956 Topps set was somewhat anti-climatic but nevertheless a joyful memory. Leading up to the Christmas of 2007, my Dad (with the help of my Mom) scoured eBay and other online baseball card stores for the remaining 29 cards we needed to complete the set. Throughout the weeks and months leading up to the holidays, he knew we had completed the set but he kept it quiet, wanting to surprise me on Christmas morning. I have no idea, and I'll never know, what the true last card was that he acquired to finish off the set. And I have no record, nor was he able to tell me, how much they had paid for any of these final 29 cards.
 |
| December 24, 2007 - Doug and Dad |
Dad was understandably distraught that Christmas, but not solely because of his own health issues. Because of his unselfish nature, he was worried that he had ruined Christmas for everyone since we had spent the holidays in a hospital. He was also upset that his surprise package containing those last 29 baseball cards sat in the back seat of his car for three days until he recovered enough to come home. I was just happy to have him out of the hospital, but I do remember feeling confused and somewhat hopeless as we weren't quite sure yet what was wrong with him.
I don't have any pictures from December 28th, which is unusual for me. I'm assuming I was just happy that Dad was out of the hospital and taking pictures never crossed my mind. Among the "big" cards in that final haul were the cards of Roberto Clemente (#33), Monte Irvin (#194), Whitey Ford (#240), Pee Wee Reese (#260) and this pristine checklist card.
Dad was adamant that our complete set contain both available checklists, and he was also determined to find both completely unmarked. I find it fitting this is unofficially the last card added to complete our 1956 Topps set, 20 years after we had started collecting it.
 |
| Our final checklist - all boxes checked |
The Card / Checklists
For the first time in its short history, and I believe a first for any baseball card set, Topps made the decision to include checklists in certain packs of its 1956 Topps cards, to let collectors know who was in the set and which cards they might still need. From what I've read, Topps (and Bowman) had avoided providing collectors with checklists with its earlier sets so as to alert them who wasn't in the set. For example, collectors would continue to buy packs of 1955 Topps cards hoping to find an elusive Mickey Mantle (#135) or Roy Campanella (#101) card, not realizing those cards did not exist, as Mantle and Campanella were both exclusively under contract with Bowman. With Bowman out of the way beginning in 1956, there was nothing holding Topps back from letting collectors know who was in their set.
For the first time in its short history, and I believe a first for any baseball card set, Topps made the decision to include checklists in certain packs of its 1956 Topps cards, to let collectors know who was in the set and which cards they might still need. From what I've read, Topps (and Bowman) had avoided providing collectors with checklists with its earlier sets so as to alert them who wasn't in the set. For example, collectors would continue to buy packs of 1955 Topps cards hoping to find an elusive Mickey Mantle (#135) or Roy Campanella (#101) card, not realizing those cards did not exist, as Mantle and Campanella were both exclusively under contract with Bowman. With Bowman out of the way beginning in 1956, there was nothing holding Topps back from letting collectors know who was in their set.
I'm assuming that motivation is behind the logic of having the two checklist cards for the 1956 Topps set include non-consecutive series from the set. This first checklist shows the cards from series one and three, while the second checklist contains cards from series two and four. Not only could collectors see who they needed from series one, but they now had a preview of who to look for in series three.
Topps also took the extra step of highlighting the team cards in red, a new innovation for baseball card sets, so that collectors would be sure not to miss those. The back of this checklist lets collectors know the complete set contains 340 cards, and there would be another checklist containing the cards not shown on this one.
Previous Card / Next Card
Set Order: #340 Mickey McDermott - New York Yankees / 2nd Series / 4th Series Checklist
Order Collected: #327 Bob Wiesler - Washington Nationals / #19 Chuck Diering - Baltimore Orioles
