A New Vintage Set Quest

Yesterday I shared some matchbook covers that I won in an auction recently.  During that same auction I bid on and won some cards from a set I have been thinking about building, 1961 Fleer.  My goal was to finish off my 1960 Fleer set and my 1961 Golden Press set prior to starting this set.  I see these sets in a similar light as smaller sets and somewhat of oddball sets featuring retired baseball greats.  But seeing 3 lots of these cards at a pretty reasonable price made me decide to start putting this set together without finishing the others up.

I picked up 36 total cards and 32 different cards which is more than 20% of the 154 card set.  Not a bad start.  Here are all 36 cards:

 Boy, my photography skills need some work - those are some crooked pictures.  While I generally like some scenery in the background on cards, I am okay with the solid colors, they are bright and make the players stand out.  It will be interesting to see once I get closer to completing the set if there is a pattern to the colors.

Whenever I see these cards I always wonder, "why 5 stars, could it have been 4 or 6 - who made that decision". Silly I guess but it would be great to hear from card designers what went into the decisions.  I really enjoy the variety of players in this set.  There are going to be some tough (expensive) cards in this set build like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams but I don't think it will be crazy expensive.

Here is a look at the card backs:

The trophy surrounding the number is kind of cool.  I really like the write ups and the career stats and everything is pretty easy to read.

I ended up with 4 extras, if anyone is looking for them let me know.  Also, outside of the Giants team set featured here, I don't think I have any more of these in my collection so if you have some available for trade or sale drop me a line.