My HOF Collection

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Posted By: Paul

You don't have to listen to me whine anymore. I'm pleased to announce that I have finally picked up a Bid McPhee, just 11 years after his induction into the HOF, and have now completed my HOF collection. Or, more accurately, it is now as complete as it will ever be.

With the recent election of Pete Hill, my collection will never be truly complete. He has only a single known Cabanas card and a single known Punch card, and neither one is leaving its current residence any time soon. I also don't have the uncut Mallorquina sheet that includes the only known card of Willie Foster -- but I can try to discount that one because it's an uncut sheet not a card. And I also don't have the G&B Spalding -- but I'm still convinced he was elected as a pioneer player, not an owner. And I'd like to upgrade my T204 Burkett to a W600.

But with these exceptions (and I have excuses on 3 of the 4), I now have a card of every Hall of Famer (player, manager, umpire, executive, etc.) who has a card. And, as Janis Joplin might say: That's good enough for me, good enough for me and my Biddy McPhee.

Here he is.




Just for fun, here are a few more of the tough ones.

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Posted By: Josh K.

congrats Paul - is that from the McPhee from the Indy find?

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Posted By: Paul

I prefer to call it the "Fort Knox" find, but yes it's from the Indy find.

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Posted By: Chad

You've got 7 of my dream cards--the Negro league stuff--up there. Congratulations on the collection. It really is a brilliant one.

--Chad

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

HOF?

HOF?

Who would want HOF'ers?



CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad to know that some of my old cards are in good hands.

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Posted By: Cat

NICE! ...love them Cuban cards.

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Posted By: PC

That's awesome. Great collection.

But why stop there? You can use your existing collection as the base of a HOF type card collection. In my mind that would be perhaps the ultimate collection -- one of every HOFer, with an example from every set.

Actually, leaving aside the super-expensive and one of a kind cards, the ultimate collection would be the earliest example of every HOFer (the proverbial HOF rookie card collection), coupled with HOF type cards.

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Posted By: Chad

Include players inducted into the Japanese and Cuban Halls of Fame. Nagashima and Oh from Japan and Bernardo Baro from Cuba, at least, would be a cool expansion of the set. Those were some great players.

--Chad

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Posted By: John S

Congrats Paul...to complete a collection like that takes persistance and patience and some $. I enjoy hearing about the theme collections; hope that you come up with an interesting idea for a new one.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Paul:

Congratulations!

This is great to hear - it's awesome that you got the McPhee and got the collection complete.

So, what's next? Another sport?

-Al

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Posted By: Mike

Bet you don't own a Bruce Sutter yet!

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Posted By: Josh K.

Hal,

Have you sold off your cards?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

No, no, no.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Paul has a few of my old cards that I didn't need after I obtained other ones, etc.

With you and Paul, I know that most of my old cardboards are in good hands now!

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Posted By: Josh K.

Good to know.

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Posted By: Seth B.

Hal: I used to love your website, what a great collection! It seems down now, is something in the works, when can we peruse your cards again?

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Posted By: Alan

Congratulations Paul !!!
Now how about this theme: "Rare cards of Jewish players" !!!

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Posted By: barry arnold

Congrats!
A tremendous milestone!

all the best,

Barry

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Posted By: Mark Holt

Congrats and thanks for sharing the scans!!!

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Posted By: Anonymous

or a web site of your cards
I got to within about 7 cards until I started selling them off

bill

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

As a fellow HOF collector, my hat is off to you!!

Frank

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Great accomplishment! How about a collection of each of the players who should be enshrined, but aren't?

Oh wait - and a further WOW. I did not know that you could show a 3-D image in this venue! Special thanks for all of those who put this together (or do we do this everyday, and I just ain't paying attention?)

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Posted By: Paul

Thanks to all of you for your kind words. When I decided to put this collection together (probably around 1980 or so), I never imagined it would be difficult. I knew it would take a while, and I knew the 19th century guys would cost some money. But it never even occurred to me that any single HOFer would be particularly rare.

What to do next? There definitely are a few cards that I'd still love to own. Not to turn this into a B/S/T thing, but the E94 Young (especially violet), a horizontal E Matty and an M116 Wood are at the top of my list.

But I don't think I'm going to go for a new theme or expand the existing one. The truth is, the last few cards (McPhee, Mackey, and Andy Cooper), were so painfully expensive that it just wasn't fun. And this hobby is supposed to be fun. So I don't want to put myself again in a position where I "have to" own a card no matter what the price. I would much rather buy cards that I like, rather than cards that I need.

Paul