How I Spent My Group Break Money

I've been in two group breaks for the last few months.  This I decided that my money was better spent on singles.  That isn't saying that I didn't get anything good from my group breaks but I feel I can better meet my collecting goals by just buying singles.  You see in the group breaks i end up with a bunch of inserts that I don't really have anything to do with.  I like them because they are Red Sox but they dont' fit into my collection of every base Red Sox card ever.     So I took the $42 I would have spent on my group breaks and spent it on the Beckett marketplace.  (actually spent just over $50 so I could take advantage of free shipping)  I choose Burbank Cards to be the vendor that I bought from because they have so many cards to choose from.  Here is my haul.  I'm listing all the Red Sox first and then the rest.

Up first is some Red Sox Kellogg's goodness.  Now I don't know anyone that doesn't like Kellogg's cards.  If they still made these things I would be a cereal eating fool.  The Rice and Jenkins cards each finished off team sets for me so I was extra happy with them.  (that is a 77 Hostess Yaz in there with all the Kellogg's stuff)

1956 was the team set I was going to collect first out of all the team sets in existence.  Now I have completed nearly 100 team sets and 56 isn't done yet.  At least I am one card closer.  Also pictured is and oddly sized 1979 Topps Comic of Yaz

Now for the older stuff.   Night Owl probably already has a very thoughtful  name for the 63 set on the top right but me I call it the dot set.  I've always thought the 64 set that the Malzone above came from was kind of boring but every new card I get of it makes me like it more.  1965 Topps is one of my favorite Topps sets of all time.  I knocked a good chunk off of my want list this one.

I call this the pink set.  I don't know if the borders for all the cards were pink but I do know all the Red Sox had pink borders.  This is one of my very least favorite sets and only bought it because the price was right.  I like the 67s though.  Why I don't know they are kind of plain actually but it works well.

I hope you were ready for lots of vintage cards because I got a ton of them in the package.  Yaz is easily me favorite here.

1971 is easily my least favorite Topps set.  I know it is a highly collected set but I hate the black borders.  I refused to collect it but eventually they started coming to me in trade packages.  I bought this one because this card has me down to only needing 2 more cards for the team set. Sweet Team set completion with both the 74s and 76s pictured.  I missed the Siebert card when I scanned all the Kellogg's so I snuck him in here instead.

The great thing about singles is that you can knock specific cards off of your want list.  I can now also count 75 complete also. 

I bought a little bit of new stuff also.  Not much but a little.  Little in volume and size.  Pictured are four 2006 A&G Mini cards. 

Now for something besides Red Sox.  Yes I am about commit Red Sox blasphemy by posting not only one but two Yankee cards.

They are not normal Yankee card though they are Bill Virdon Yankee cards.  As far as I know I am the only Bill Virdon super collector in existence.  Burbank had a bunch of oddball Virdon stuff for me to choose from.  1964 Topps, 2003 Yankee Signature Series, 1994 Topps Archives, 1979 TCMA, 1981 Topps and 1975 Topps Mini.

You are not seeing double.  That is a 76 Topps and a 76 O-Pee-Chee.

Here is the difference.  Not much, card stock color and a little bit of wording.

Again not doubles.  1973 Topps (A) and 1973 O-Pee-Chee.  Nothing different about the fronts but...

There is some Canadian French on the O-Pee-Chee.

Even more variations.  For the record 83 Topps, 83 O-Pee-Chee, 84 O-Pee-Chee, 84 Nestle, and 84 Tiffany.  At least they put O-Pee-Chee on the front these years.

There are a couple Swell cards here.  By Swell I not only mean they are really good, they are made by some long forgotten company called Swell.  The Pacific Legends and the Fleer checklist cards are actually both upgrades.  I got both of them years ago and had them signed but I wasn't to careful with them as a kid.  In the middle are an 86 Astros TCMA and 2002 Topps Super Teams cards.  The middle one is classified as a refractor but in reality it is a foil card.  No Refracting to it.  Bottom middle is another oddball 80s set.  It is an 83 Stuart card.  I don't know anything about them other than there is also 2 Virdons (that I don't yet have) in a 84 Stuart set.

I think I did pretty well with my $50.  I got a whole bunch of vintage Red Sox and I almost doubled my Virdon collection.  I was very happy with Burbank.  I bought lower grade cards and in almost every case the cards I received were actually in better shape than advertised.  They also took good care of me.  They couldn't find a card that they had listed and offered a replacement.  So instead of a 1980 TCMA Virdon that was listed at 50 cents I got that 77 Yazstremski Hostess that was listed at $2 straight up trade.  I was happy with that.  I know Beckett's site can be pretty slow at times but I would positively recommend using Burbank.