The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge (Day 29)

Day 29: A favorite card from before 1950, whether you own it or not

Yet again, COMC comes to the rescue.

I'm glad this challenge consistently makes use of the "A" in the challenge - A favorite card.... Without it, I don't think I could have been honest with myself and my readers. With so many of my cards out of reach, I've had to make compromises. I do love the cards I've posted, but if I had access to my entire collection, I might have made different choices for most of the posts.

And if it wasn't for COMC, I probably would have brought you another menko. I really enjoy getting new menko for my collection, and the older ones are the best-looking.

But I've been working on meeting my 2017 collecting goals. You know, the ones I posted about at the beginning of the year? I've met seven of the 20 goals already, so I think I should be pretty close to 100% this year if I don't actually finish all of my goals. One of those goals is to reduce the "type 1" want list to 50 cards. Type 1 is comprised of base cards from major releases; it's not perfect, because there are some sets on that list which many people would consider oddballs, including several TCMA releases.

The earliest set on that list is the 1887 Allen & Ginter's N28 set. It's a famous set even with modern collectors thanks to Topps' homage issued over the past ten-plus years. Known for its beautiful paintings, the set has "champions" from several different sports. On Sunday, I finally added one to my collection. It's in nice condition, especially since it's 130 years old! And while it's not a baseball player, it's from that same set, and the base ball players are listed on the back along with this guy, John McKay, an oarsman.

This is one of my favorites because it is my oldest card, it's very beautiful even just on my screen, and it (along with Old Judge and Kimball) represents the start of "mainstream" baseball card sets! I wonder how hard it would be to get the other 49 cards? (No, it's not happening.)