Finally finished my Red Heart set! Special thanks to those who helped

[almostdone]

Every set I've built I have done in a lower grade to keep it reasonable budget wise. While I've enjoyed building them I always admired those with the patience to build a higher grade set on a budget. I decide to build a set in higher grade with good eye appeal. I picked the 1954 Red Heart set. I've always loved the size of the issue as well as player selection. The bright background colors also makes the set stand out.

I want to say thank you to all those who helped me along the way. Either by trading, selling or even keeping me posted to what came available. Fellow members as well on others not on this board were all very helpful and I appreciate all of it.

I also wanted to say a special thanks to a dealer that many of you may know. "Uncle Dick" Decorcy has been a fixture on the card show circuit for a few decades. He specializes in set building. He will be at the National this week.

I met Uncle Dick a year ago at a show in Raleigh. I enjoyed his conversation and help. Over the past year he and I have emailed a time or two to work on my current project. I was down to he last card, Enos Slaughter, to finish the Red Heart set. I couldn't find one within my budget that met the condition I was keeping the set within. I emailed Uncle Dick and told him. He said he would keep his eye out for one. A few weeks ago he emailed back and said he found one at the Chantily show. He picked it up for me and when I saw him this past weekend again in Raleigh he showed me the card. It was perfect. Then he showed me his notes on the purchase and offered it to me at cost. He didn't make anything on it but rather just helped me out to complete the set.

If you happen to be at the National make it a point to stop by his booth and check out his stuff. Make sure you tell him Drew said hello and thanks.

Anyway, here is some pictures of the complete set as well as the different series to get a closer view of the cards.

Hope you enjoy! Now, on to building a custom display to house the set.

Drew

[almostdone]

Blue set

[almostdone]

Red set

[almostdone]

And the Green

[Bliggity]

Beautiful! Looking forward to seeing them in a display.

[daves_resale_shop]

Drew, congrats!

Quite an accomplishment... I never realized how Attractive this set was until now...

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by almostdone

Blue set

Drew,

Nice accomplishment. I have not completed the set as I tend to focus on the larger sets first. Were there any rarities within the set? Were there any variations? What was the hardest card to find?

Just curious. Thanks.

Z

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Drew,

Nice accomplishment. I have not completed the set as I tend to focus on the larger sets first. Were there any rarities within the set? Were there any variations? What was the hardest card to find?

Just curious. Thanks.

Z

There aren't any variations in the set. Just the standard 33 cards. 11 in each series. I've seen original advertisements for the set on eBay. If you collected 10 (I think) labels for the dog food cans and mailed them into the company with the postage they would send you one series.

The red ones are short printed but not scarce by any means. The two biggest cards are of course Mantle and then Musial. It's one of the few mid 50's issues of Musial and being a collector of his stuff it is one of my favorites.

Another interesting thing is 11 of the cards in the set are represented by players that ended up in the HOF. That's 1/3 of the set being HOFers! Also I've wondered about team choice. At the time there were 16 major league teams but three are not represented. 10 of the players are from Chicago. 5 from the Cubs and 5 from the Sox. Yankees, Dodgers and Giants are also well represented which makes sense given the era.

I did find that there are more decent conditioned cards out there compared to Topps sets from the same era. Probably because he sets were mailed to you and didn't end up in a kids back pocket or bicycle spikes on the way home from the five and dime.

The biggest issue is centering but it isn't impossible. Overall it was a lot of fun to put together and not too crazy expensive getting bogged down in the commons.

If anyone hasn't ever had any cards from it I would recommend looking into it. It's a great set and I think it represents the 50's style sets very well.

Drew

PS I did want to actually thank Chris, Campyfan39, for his help. He gave me a great deal on the Mantle at well below what I would have paid for a perfectly centered example.

[Brian B@rry]

I have this set, albeit with some cards pretty badly miscut side to side. I think those came from Wholesale Cards - they are in pristine condition otherwise. I had a real tough time finding the Lemon card. I finally saw it at a show. Either the dealer could sense my desperation or he knew that the card was tough because he held the line on the price, which was pretty high (I think I paid $30 about 30 years ago). Even as he was closing up his table he refused to budge, so I bought it. I had been hunting for at least a year for that card.

It's a great set and yours looks real nice. Congratulations!

[LeftHandedDane]

Congrats Drew! Hopefully I am not far behind you as I have only two more to go to complete the set! I find it to be one of the most beautiful sets to display, and like you am impressed by the density of star cards.