Cards I Love Part 8 - 1961 Topps Bob Gibson

I had several 1960s Cardinals cards as a kid.  All of them were lesser known players, and most of them had some wear and tear.  If they did not have wear and tear, they did after the eight year old me was done handling them a bunch of times. 

This feels like a good example. 

At some point in late elementary school, one of the strip malls that was a few miles from my house was remodeled to include a Vic Tanny, some sort of castle shaped sporting goods store, and a baseball card shop.  I believe the shop was St. Louis Sports Collectables.  The store later moved down Manchester Road and was near the Wal-Mart and Post Office in Manchester.  Don't quote me on the name, but I am fairly certain. 

From time to time I would get a nice card from the shop, which included my first good vintage Cardinals card. This 1961 Topps Bob Gibson card is one of my favorite cards in my collection. 

This was my first good Cardinals vintage card, and the second vintage Hall of Famer in my collection after the Don Drysdale card that appeared in the first post of this series.  I am pretty sure that I added both cards within a few months of each other.  I added other good Cardinals vintage cards over the years, but this being the first has long been my favorite.  

This is the back of the card.  

Love that they mention that Gibby played for the Harlem Globetrotters on the back of the card.  The cartoons on the back of the old Topps cards are great. 

A few years back, I was out and about at a card show when I ran into a really clean copy of this card.  I am all about finding cleaner, better copies of vintage cards in my collection.  I sell the poor copies, I lose a little bit of money in the process, but I am usually happy with the upgrade. 

Here is the second Gibson card I ended up with. 

The card is much cleaner, but it has always bothered me that I actually thought about upgrading this card.  I never ended up selling either copy of the card, but I can definitely tell the two apart and keep the original in front of the other in the box where they are stored.  Easily one of my favorite baseball cards.