my 1961 topps sampler set

this will be the last of my sampler set posts.  you'll just have to trust me that i put together samplers (at least one card for each team, subset, color combo, etc) for the 1962-69 topps sets.  this is what i had for 1961 topps.

if you're keeping track, the 1961 set has league leaders, rookie cups, rookie stars, team cards, managers, combos, world series highlights, checklists, baseball thrills, mvp's, and sporting news all-stars.  it also featured a couple of new teams - the twins and angels - to bring the total to 18.  here's the backs of the second sheet from my sampler

the team card is oriented properly, topps just printed the backs upside down. that's how i see it, anyway.

one of my favorite cards in the set is dick schofield's, and one card that i really wanted when i started this endeavor about 12 years ago was the lou gehrig baseball thrills card.  i settled for the rogers hornsby one, then picked up the chesbro and the cadore/oeschger later.  the latter card stays in my collection, since it features the brooklyn robins' pitcher (cadore) who threw 26 innings on may 1, 1920. here are all the dodgers from the 1961 set.

 

one of which looks more like a phillie.

i've thought a bit about it, and i'll probably go find a gehrig baseball thrills for my collection, even though i've disassembled the sampler.  if i applied reason to my collection, i would have stopped collecting a long time ago.

my 1960 topps sampler set

i haven't addressed my sampler sets for a while - in fact, i stopped with the 1959 set.  the idea here was that i would never complete a full set of any of the topps releases prior to 1970, so why not pick up a card from each team and each subset to create a sampler.  i've since decided to pare down the collection a bit, so i'm pulling the non-dodger cards.

before i do, however, i'm documenting the full sampler for posterity.  here's what i had for the 1960 set.

full disclosure: i used to have a 1960 topps al kaline card in here, but i used that as part of my entry into the traveling box put together by bad wax.  i saw the box a couple of times, and i assume that it is now defunct, especially since bad wax's site is no longer maintained.  it would be nice to know for sure, though.

you'll notice that the higher the numbers got, the fewer non-dodgers i picked up.

a couple of other things to note - the subsets in this set were team cards, rookie stars, combo cards, mangers, topps all-star rookies, world series recap, coaches, and all-star cards.  also, the manager cards are there to remind us that the 1960 set is not a completely horizontal set.

i scanned the back of one of the pages, and you can see that my set includes both white and gray backs

once i removed all of the non-dodger cards, this is what the pages looked like

that's what i consider the dodger team set to look like.  i decided to keep all 7 world series cards, including games 5 and 6 that are mostly white sox centric. the game 5 card features maury wills, so that was a no-brainer, and it seemed odd to only leave out one card from the subset.  on that second to last page, it's easy to see that it is pitching coach joe becker getting doused with booze on the celebratory card thanks to the coaches card being close by.

i'm not sure if i will bother to scan and display my samplers from 1961-1969.  they are larger in general due to the expansion of the leagues.  maybe i'll just show some selected cards from different teams and the different subsets instead.  stay tuned.

my 1959 topps sampler

there were still only 16 teams in the major leagues in 1959, but topps unleashed a number of subsets in their baseball card set that year which made this one of my favorite sampler sets.  in addition to the different colors used for the card backgrounds - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black, and pink - there were combo cards, team cards, a commissioner card and all-star cards once again, but there were also rookie stars and baseball thrills and a special roy campanella card.

here's my sampler set with at least one of each of those aforementioned cards, including a complete dodger team set

it is odd that topps used a different design for the national league and american league all-star cards.  here are the backs of the first page of the sampler

i just noticed that art fowler is suttoning.  maybe sutton was fowlering.

my 1958 topps sampler

the 1958 topps set had a few subsets to consider - team cards, combo cards, all-star cards, plus a variety of colored backgrounds.  there are yellow, red, green, blue, orange, black, and pink.  here's what i have - at least one card from each team, each color background, and each subset.

there aren't too many black bordered cards to choose from in the set, as i recall.  here are the backs of the first sheet of my sampler.

the most recent addition to the set was the eddie mathews all-star card.  i had the nellie fox to fill the need for the sampler, but when i saw the mathews, i figured i would add a national league version with the blue background.  i have since sent the nellie fox to jeff at 2x3 heroes.

who knows what will happen to the rest once i pull the dodger team set.

my 1957 topps sampler set

time to show my 1957 topps sampler set.  this one is different from the others in that i have decided that completing this set is one of my collecting 'stretch' goals.  so, i will take the dodgers out of here for my team set (completed!), but look to replace them in the future as a i build the set.  i like the colors on the cards, plus the fact that it is the first set at the now standard card size.  here's my want list, by the way.

as a reminder, the sampler set consists of (at least) one card from every team, plus (at least) one card from every subset.  in 1957, there were still only 16 teams.  there were also team cards, a league presidents card, and for the first time, combo cards.

so my combo card is the dodger sluggers card which made sense.  at some point i will have to get the mantle/berra combo.  zoinks.  the elmer valo card may well be my favorite non-dodger card in the set, although there are a lot of great cards that i don't have yet.

here's the backs of the first sampler sheet

some with cartoons, some without, but all with the orientation that i believe is the best - the wrist twist toward you back orientation.  it's what 1978 topps had, so i took that to be the correct orientation.

i'll probably start my set building with a random lot and try to pick up some of the star cards here and there over the next, oh, 20 years or so.  should be fun.

my 1956 topps sampler set

continuing on with my sampler set posts.  these posts are for posterity, as i am dismantling the samplers and keeping only the dodgers.  for those who might be wondering, the sampler sets are something i put together in lieu of actually completing the full topps sets of the 1950's and 1960's.  the samplers include at least one card from each team, each subset, and each color/background variation.

in 1956, there were still only 16 teams, but there were a couple of new subsets to chase.  first, topps included cards for the american league and national league presidents (i, of course, purchased a copy of the national league president's card - warren giles, upper left). second, topps added team cards to the mix.  i have a couple - i first bought the reds because i couldn't afford the dodger card.  i later bought the brooklyn team card from the vintage bargain bin dealer at a local card show for a song.  it's beat up, but it's mine.

without further ado, here is my 1956 topps sampler set, as it was

lots of dodgers there.  a complete team set, in fact.  you can see that my jackie robinson card is trimmed, and my walt alston card is missing a corner, but oh well.

here are the backs of the first page - some bright, some gray.

you will note that i did not include checklists in the sampler.  that's simply because the checklists were not part of the 340 card set.  in future years, starting with 1961, the checklists were part of the base set and so were included in the samplers.