the final piece of the puzzle

It's finished.

The final card needed for my 1973 Topps set has arrived today. John Callison was the last to show up to the party out of the final five cards I purchased.

Allow me to explain.


I needed three cards to finish off the set, 535, 554 and 586. Those were the cards missing. I picked up an other 578 due to it having tape on the back and was the only card that was in dire need of replacement.

The fifth card comes from a big error on my part. I kept seeing the Harmon Killebrew card (card 170) in places. The local shop. The past few shows. Online. The weird part was I didn't recognize it. I checked my binder and what did I see in the slot where card 170 goes? How about a double of card 168, Jim Northrup? Jim was in his proper position as well, meaning I messed up and put two of the same card on the same page. No idea how it happened but now I needed the Killebrew and I found him cheap online as well.

So there it is. The final five have arrived and the set is complete. How did I do though?

Well, let's do a little math. Or at least stats, I've already done the math.

I kept track of everything regarding 1973 purchases. How many cards, how many I needed, how much, where I got them and even cost per card. Nothing got bought without it being logged onto my chart here. Its handwritten so I don't have it on here but here are the final totals:


Total cards purchased: 1071 (in the beginning I picked up lots just to get the set started off)

Total cost of all cards/lots purchased: $336.81

Cards needed out of total purchased: 686 (684 in the set total, including the blue checklists)

Cost per card (average): $0.49



Not too shabby but I recently sold a lot of 152 cards for $45.00. Subtracting that brings my totals to this:



Total cards purchased: 919

Total cost of all cards/lots purchased: $291.81

Cost per card (average): $0.42



I started about 2 weeks before Christmas, so thats close to three months. Completing the project for under $300 is really good, I feel. The average price for a set sold on eBay is about $400, maybe $350. All things considered I think I beat this one out, plus it was a bunch of fun to collect and piece together myself. I am doing the same thing with the 1971 set too, so we'll see how well I do on that one.

Feels good to finish off a set almost 40 years old. Let's hope 1971 goes just as smoothly.


(Don't forget to cast your pick from yesterday's post!)