My 50-year chase to complete the 1964 Topps Coin Set

Cling!

Oh, what a lovely sound.

A special coin just fell out of a 1964 Topps wax pack and into my dreams.

These were the greatest Topps inserts of all time. Color images of baseball heroes leaping off a metallic coin. 120 standard coins, 44 all-star coins. I read in 2014 that “a decent condition set will cost you $500-$1,000.”

The photography on the standard coins ranges from headshots (no one is capless, btw) to batting stances (Pete Rose, #82, and Hank Aaron, #83, look fabulous). The rear of the coin featured the all-important info such as height, weight, which side a player threw or hit from, along with a brief info nugget. Coin #92 tells us Jim Hickman of the Mets was an ex-Cardinal. Your day is now complete.

    

Oh, those all-star coins! The vibrant colors! The simple but perfect graphic design. The sparkling photography. The A.L. coins were blue, the N.L. red. The color printing on the all-star coins was astonishingly brilliant and wears well to this day. The image registration is razor sharp. The beard stubble on Ken Boyer’s face could sand hardwood floors (#145). Roberto Clemente’s arm cocked, hand grasping a baseball, ready to mow someone down at the plate (#150). Chuck Hinton’s glower as he grips the bat (#162). Even the Washington Senators could look badass in this all-star set.

 

I was six years old when my brothers introduced me to baseball cards for the first time. The 1964 set and the accompanying coins planted the seed of a drug that has held me rapt for lo these 53 years.

We didn’t have many of those coins. Some were lost to the ravages of time, neighborhood thieves, and play rooms cleaned by a fastidious mother.

Decades passed. I started going to card shows. Technology evolved. I found people who gave or traded me coins for doubles of my cards. The grace of eBay arrived, backed by a celestial choir. There they were, gobs of the 1964 coins, separate or in lots, with plenty available. The ones in primo condition sold at crazy prices. I’m a possession collector, so I don’t care what condition they’re in, and I buy low.

In 2012, I put my hand on a rock and proclaimed I’d reclaim this special part of my childhood. I wanted every coin in the set. And, no, I did not need the error/variation coins of Chuck Hinton (#162A), and Wayne Causey (#161A)—Topps mistakenly made them as NL all-stars (I have no idea how many were made before corrected, nor do I care).

The first eBay pile came from a lady that found a bucket of coins in her attic, some partially corroded by moisture. Fine! Bring it! More lots followed, and I went down the checklist, ticking off stragglers.

By 2014, I only needed 8 to complete the set. The last coin I needed, #100, Al Kaline, taunted me. I would not pay a king’s ransom for it. I finally saw it on eBay for a very reasonable price, and Nirvana was achieved!

I must admit to a moment of sadness when I’d finally completed the set. The chase was over. The thrill of the hunt was gone. But I finally had them all and could move on to the next phase: obtaining the sleeved pages, final presentation, and endless ogling.

I take the magical binder out once in a while to luxuriate in the glow of my metallic beauties. I close my eyes, and it’s 1964. Triples go to die in Willie Mays’ glove. Frank Howard is still on the Dodgers, and Billy O’Dell still has that weird thing on his upper lip.

I have my doubles in a beat-up baggie that I sometimes bring to baseball-related meetings and conferences to give to others I know will enjoy them. I recently had lunch with Rich Kee, former photographer for the Dodgers in the 70s and 80s. I offered him any coin from the stack of doubles. No dummy he, Rich snapped up coin #106, Sandy Koufax. Who knows? Maybe if you’re nice to me, I’ll slip you one the next time I see you!