Summer of Slabs 04 - First '56 team set complete!

There aren't many holes left to fill in my 1956 Topps set build, but they are spread out evenly among the 16 teams that existed at the time. Not including both League Presidents cards and both checklist cards, these are the remaining cards I need to acquire:

Baltimore Orioles (4) team card, Willy Miranda, Dave Philley, George Zuverink (tough one!)
Boston Red Sox (1) Bob Porterfield
Brooklyn Dodgers (6) Walter Alston, team card, Don Bessent, Pee Wee Reese, Jim Gilliam, Rube Walker
Chicago Cubs (4) team card, Monte Irvin, Bob Rush, Sam Jones
Chicago White Sox (3) team card, Larry Doby, Connie Johnson
Cincinnati Redlegs (2) Joe Nuxhall, Chuck Harmon
Cleveland Indians (3) team card, Vic Wertz, Hal Naragon
Detroit Tigers (4) Ned Garver, Frank Lary, team card, Bob Miller
Kansas City Athletics (3) team card, Tom Gorman, Bobby Shantz
Milwaukee Braves (1) George Crowe
New York Giants (2) Willie Mays, team card
New York Yankees (4) Bill Skowron, Billy Martin, Irv Noren, Don Larsen
Philadelphia Phillies (3) Jim Owens, Del Ennis, Andy Seminick
Pittsburgh Pirates (2) Bob Friend, Bob Skinner (apparently I'm avoiding the Bobs.)
St. Louis Cardinals (3) Rip Repulski, Stu Miller, Willard Schmidt
Washington Nationals (1) Carlos Paula

Most of series 1 is filled, only seven of the first 100 remained. So when I noticed that Paula was #4 n the set I jumped on eBay to find a seller who had a clean copy. The only one was in Quebec, so it took a while to arrive. In the mean time, I counted the remaining cards from every team and noticed that not only would card #4 leave me with just one player card to cross off my first series list (Skowron) I would finally complete a team set!

Here they are, your 1956 Washington Senators Nationals:

Now you know why this was the first team set I completed. Not a ton of star power here, huh? 

Luckily, Topps tossed in a 19 year-old prospect who tied for sixth on the team in home runs despite playing just 38 games in 1955:

I actually bought the Killebrew card sight unseen as part of an eBay purchase. The seller had some more 1956 cards (Pirates team, Yankees team, Mickey McDermott, and Killer here) that he hadn't listed. We negotiated a price and he shipped them with the original purchase - a lot of 20 mid-grade singles from this set. The snow on Harmon's hat isn't as noticeable in hand. 

 

There's one more 1956 Topps card on the way to Collector HQ as part of my bday purchase, but it won't complete a team set. Also, my 4SC Consignment ended (the smaller batch). It was a mixed bag. Some surprises but mostly lower than expected. Which is to be expected; auctions always end lower than they should when you're selling, and higher than they should when you're buying. 

Thanks for reading!

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