[Balticfox]

If I start on a set, I go after all the cards. Given the huge size of Baseball card sets and the nosebleed prices some of the star cards fetch, I must invariably do a large amount of prioritizing by favourites when it comes to the stars. Truthfully though unmarked Checklists are at least as high a priority for me as are most stars.

The vintage Baseball card sets upon which I've started are these:

1954 Topps
1955 Topps
1957 Topps
1958 Topps
1959 Topps
1960 Topps
1961 Topps
1962 Topps
1962 Post Cereal
1962 Canadian Post Cereal
1963 Topps
1965 Topps

The only set I'm even close to completing though is the 1962 Canadian Post Cereal.

I also go after the wrappers including variants from any set I'm collecting. I got the idea to collect wrappers from a glossy page picturing a bunch of Topps Baseball wrappers in an early 1980's Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide by Dr. James Beckett.

Moreover I've been collecting Non-Sport cards at least as long as I've been collecting Baseball cards. And wrappers have been avidly pursued by many Non-Sport card collectors since the 1970's anyway. In fact the longest standing and best respected Non-Sport card magazine is called The Wrapper!

I still remember mentioning that I had a complete set of Civil War News cards to a collector I met at Comics Unlimited on Keewatin Avenue in Toronto back in 1982 or so. He immediately asked me whether I had a wrapper. And just by coincidence I happened to be in the same shop a year or two later when the same fellow was exulting about scoring a Civil War News wrapper which he was now going home to put with his set! (I have both the one cent and five cent Civil War News wrappers myself now.) Here though are some of my Baseball card wrappers from the 1950's:

1957



1958



1959



I also remember mentioning the CFL wrappers I had while I was talking on the phone to another avid CFL collector in Vancouver back in 1995 or so. I could almost see the penny drop in his mind right across the continent! And yes, within a few weeks he was negotiating to purchase my duplicate CFL wrappers.

Of course I like unfolded display boxes too. Whether I can find let alone afford any of the Baseball ones is another question.