topps series 1 wrapper redemptions

Topps can be pretty quick about things on occasion. Case in point; I mailed out my Series 1 wrappers on Saturday, and received my four redemption packs today. According to Baseballcardpedia, you need to send the jumbo and regular packs separate. Not true. I stuffed all the wrappers into one envelope (10 jumbo, and three bundles of 36 regular hobby packs) and they accepted them. Here is what I got:

These were the best of the bunch. I got 20 cards total, with there being 60 in the set. I am going to hold on to these, they are really really nice and the scan doesn't even come close to doing them justice. As you can see, I managed to get one of the 34 autographed 1952 players, Ned Garver. He is numbered 27/60 and admittedly, I know nothing about him. I do have this though:

His 1954 Topps card.

A quick trip to Wikipedia lets me know that his rookie season was 1948 with the St. Louis Browns. He also played for the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics and was part of the first Los Angeles Angels team in 1961, his final year of play. Is he a Hall of Famer? No, but a fine player and a good addition to my collection.