What Topps has made me do! Part 1

I think many of us have been lamenting Topps monopoly of the licensed trading card industry.  So I pose a question, how has it affected your collecting?

It's affected mine, by having me go backwards.  I know a fair amount of collectors love vintage.  For me, I like it, reason being, I'm too picky on condition.  So as much as I like vintage, I don't go out of my way to collect much of it.  I'm still working on several Yankee team sets in the 60's and now I've decided to go after these.

Yes, the (apparently) highly sought after Topps Rookie Cup cards.  I plan on going all the way back to the initial issue in 1960.  The cards look at little different in that first year.

As you see, as large portion of the card is devoted to the trophy and other information.  One thing I noticed when I started to checklist this set, is that for as many players that became stars, there are at least two others who were total busts. BTW, this McCovey card has a day to go on ebay and is priced at $132.50, yikes.

Here is another one that will set me back a few cents.

$61.00, with just under 4 hours to go, and lastly

 This one is going to be brutal.  We all know how chippy the 71's can be, and I need two, one for the cup set and one for my Yankee set.

I don't know why I never collected these as they were released.  Probably because I also put together the League Leader, Highlight, All-Star and Post Season subsets, and decided one more set was too much.

In  a future post, I'll discuss this subset a little more.  In the meantime, check my want lists from 1990 to 2012.  I still need a bunch of these.