Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Worst Set Ever: 1957 Topps baseball (started June 2024)

Friends and fellow collectors from OldBaseball.com (OBC), a group of low-grade vintage collectors, kicked off something last month that felt inevitible once someone wrote it down. First, know that dozens of us stash duplicates or handfuls of beat-up cards for sets we aren't collecting.

Those cards often sit in boxes for years, waiting for the right moment to pass it along to someone who needs it. Up to now, we dodged the formal question: WHAT'S THE "WORST" SET WE CAN BUILD AS A SINGLE, VOLTRON-INSPIRED GROUP OF COLLECTORS? 

In other words, who gets this masterful collection of rounded corners as their very own and then goes after 49 more just like it?

Each participant picked one set, allowing OBC to focus our inked-up, folded, waterstained, and trimmed treasures into one collection. I went for 1957 Topps baseball, a set I'd last built and then traded for a 1939 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio. It started with one card still hanging around: #400 Dodgers Sluggers, soaked last month to remove paper and make its back legible.

OBC friends moved fast, cards arrived two or five at a time, and my WSE (Worst Set Ever) now sits at about fifty cards. The first duplicate, #67 Chico Carrasquel, also inspired something young collectors used to do all the time: improvement via scissors and glue.


Uno + uno = Chico

My growing set includes all manner of artistic achievement, from Bob Hale's clipped corner...


...to Brooklyn's bevy of bruises...


...to Baltimore's peek-a-boo Schoendienst.

I bet more 1957s will get cosmetic surgery in this quest, since each low-grade card offers its own kind of beauty. Ping me if you're collecting in similar territory and want to swap!

5 comments:

Jon said...

I really like this concept. It seems like it would be a very pressure-free way to collect a vintage set.

Fuji said...

A. Creative set build.

B. Improvement via scissors and glue = I love it! I've seen that soak thing done on YouTube. Always wanted to try it out... but it'd have to be on cards possibly headed for the trash.

Matthew Glidden said...

Agreed, Chico's "improvement" followed from having that great profile photo that was also missing a big chunk of the bottom. Hard to resolve it any other way. :-)

Mark Zentkovich said...

👍

GTT said...

Looks like you're getting off to a gruesome start! Good luck!