October is Completed

 

Football season is upon us, and as any quarterback can tell you completions are top of mind.  This month saw several bloggers complete long running projects. Night Owl wrapped up his 1969 Topps set with the addition of Mickey Mantle (the last of the three cards to picture Mantle in that set). The comments section show he was not alone in working on this issue. Fuji knocked out a ton of 1980s Traded sets (including '82 Topps and '84 Fleer) in perhaps his best flea market find. Nine Pockets just bindered his 1991-92 Upper Deck Hockey set. Finally, though it was completed a while ago, the well done 1956 Topps Blog wrapped up the final look at one best looking sets of all time.

So yeah, October was a good month for completions. 

 

I'm not a football card collector (or even a watcher of the sport), so what do these Steelers cards have to do with my thoughts on completing sets this month? Easy. They kicked off a chain of events that concluded with my last profile of a card from the '93 Finest baseball checklist.

1993 Finest Profiles

Several years ago I set out to complete a full set of the '93 Finest Refractors. I finished it quicker than I thought possible and have been profiling several cards every month. October brings these profiles to a close with the final three acquisitions that closed out this project.

• I'm not the first guy to build the refractor set. My Greg Maddux card, however, came via the collector who just might have that distinction.
• I needed some serious luck to find an Ivan Rodriguez card.
• A gradeschool letter writing campaign yielded some football cards and a return envelope from Don Mattingly.

1952 Topps Profiles 

I still have other projects that are going to take quite a bit of time to complete. Three more cards from my incomplete '52 Topps project were looked at this month.

• Did you know the A's spent more than a decade underperforming in the standings, trailing their crosstown National League rival in attendance, had fans calling for an ownership change, and playing with uncertainty surrounding their ability to even secure a place to play? No, not today's Athletics. I'm talking about the Philadelphia Athletics of the early 1950s and the time a new pitcher gave them hope.
• A Detroit Tigers' pitcher found he performed better when not wearing shoes. That probably looked odd, but not as strange as a card that looks like it says "Dentist" across the front.
• Don Mueller looks like a slugger on many of his cards, and without a specific hot streak in 1951 the New York Giants may never have caught the Brooklyn Dodgers to set up Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round The World."

Next month I plan to continue writing about '52 Topps and will introduce a new set building project. I'm not done with writing about '93 Finest and will have much, much more to say about the cards soon. Posts for 2026 have already been mapped out and it is once again a full calendar. I'm looking forward to it.