Collecting baseball cards has been a beloved American pastime for decades. Trying to assemble a complete set of cards from a single season can be a challenging endeavor, with most standard sets including several hundred different cards. One ambitious collector took on an especially monumental task – putting together a full run of 750 cards from the 1971 Topps baseball card series.
The 1971 Topps set is considered a highly desirable vintage release by card collectors. It was the last year that Topps included player photos on the front of all cards in the set before switching to a design with mostly action shots starting in 1972. The 1971 cards also marked the final season that the legendary Hank Aaron appeared in a Topps set before his retirement. With 756 career home runs, Aaron holds the all-time Major League Baseball record.
This collector began his quest to obtain all 750 cards in the 1971 Topps set in 2010. The first major challenge was finding enough of the cards still in existence across online marketplaces, card shows, and shops to even complete the set four decades after it was originally released. Many of the lesser known players’ cards from 1971 were extremely scarce finds. It took several years of diligent searching and negotiating deals with other collectors and vendors to track down all but a handful of the cards.
By 2015, the collector was down to just a few of the most difficult stragglers to uncover – backups, pitchers who appeared in only a game or two in 1971 before being sent back down to the minors, and stars whose cards had been coveted by collectors worldwide for decades. These were the true key cards that would make or break finishing the full set. After posting extensive want lists online and contacting collectors around the globe, slow progress was finally being made.
In 2017, a major breakthrough came when another collector was willing to part with their sole copy of the elusive Bob Miller card. Miller pitched in only 3 games for the California Angels in 1971 before being demoted for good. His card had become the holy grail of unowned needs for this project. That same year, a trip to a national sports card convention yielded two more tough-to-find cards to cross off the want list. By late 2018, just a small handful of the 750 cards remained unobtained.
The collector kept scouring online marketplaces daily. After over 8 years of collecting, trading, and negotiating, he acquired the second to last card he needed for the set – Boston Red Sox reliever Vicente Romo. Romo appeared in only 1 game out of the bullpen in 1971 before being sent back down. His card was the epitome of obscure. After making one last plea for the single most sought after card still needed, a kind soul was willing to part with it. In April 2019, the collector snapped a photo documenting the completion of his white whale – a full 1971 Topps baseball card set containing all 750 different cards.
It was a monumental achievement that few collectors ever accomplish. The dedication, perseverance, and passion required to track down such a vast number of vintage cards, many of which were exceedingly rare and difficult to find, was immense. Completing a set from a year so far in the past when the internet was non-existent made the task even more impressive. This collector now owns one of the largest complete 1971 Topps baseball card collections in the world due to their relentless quest over nearly a decade. Their set will be treasured and preserved as a one-of-a-kind accomplishment in the hobby.
