Card Show Top 20 - #8 Lonely '53

Don't have much to say about this one so it's gonna be quick. Every time I go to a card show I try to pick up a 1953 Topps card off my list. There's a real card show in Atlanta about once every three years, so it's not as hard as it sounds. Here's my sole '53 pickup for Freedom Card Show 2011:

1953 Topps Bob Wilson

This show was tough. I didn't see a whole lot of affordable 1953 Topps cards. The low numbered cards I needed that I found were all superstars. The high numbered cards were all pricey. I regret not snapping up all the crummy five dollar high numbered cards in the bargain box a few years ago. Now they are all twenty-five dollars a pop and up. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm willing to pay twenty-five bones for a common card simply because the card number is over 220. Scrounging in Uncle Table Full of Binders bargain box, I found this high number of Bob Wilson that I needed. For two bucks! This card looks great for two bucks! And a high number to boot? How the heck did this get in the bargain box?

Yeeeeeeesh. Well, I've seen worse. Glue stain/paper loss on all four corners isn't so bad considering. You can still read most of the text and stats. Man, if I had been born 30 years earlier, I would have been a terrible paster. I have a tendency to want to cover every square millimeter of an object when I am spreading goopy gunk upon it. I am sure that any cards my '50s self had pasted into an album would never have a readable back ever again. I'm thankful for this lazy kid who just dabbed a glop in each corner.

The glue is actually the least horrifying thing on the back of that card. Look at the cartoon. What. The. Hell. Is. That. THING. I'm pretty sure that the question is "What is called a 'gopher ball' in baseball?" I don't know what that manically grinning creature is supposed to be but it ain't no gopher I've ever seen. Is there such a thing as a chupacabra ball? Even the sun is scared of that nightmare.

The Top 20 List:

#20 Reds' Heavy Artillery

#19 Blue MadDog

#18 Lil' Jimmy

#17 Real Fake '52

#16 First Topps

#15 Bogus Boog

#14 V103 Tree

#13 Sertoma Rico

#12 '55 Finishers

#11 Hey Shiny

#10 What the Dickens

#9 '60 Spahnnie

#8 Lonely '53

#7 Super Chief

#6 Original Frank

#5 Hoops Inspiration

#4 Rocket Robin

#3 Wizard Off Kilter

#2 Shenanigans Were Called

#1 The Holy Grail of Commons