1952 Topps Look 'n See Pt. 2

Here is the other half of my '52 Topps Look 'n See purchase. First up, George Eastman. Hard to imagine the excitement level you'd reach as a kid when you opened the pack of these to find Ol' George staring back at you like your grumpy neighbor when you ask him to retrieve your baseball from his backyard. 

Francis Scott Key looks like Paul McCartney. With some Prince thrown in. I guess. The cards with 'busy' backgrounds are more interesting obviously. I like this one. Key seems unperturbed by the chaos at Fort McHenry.

As you get into this set the fact that each and every one is a portrait begins to wear on you. I've reached that point with Paul Revere.

 

Next man up is Washington Irving. I remember reading some of his short stories many years ago and becoming interested in the Hudson River Valley which was the locale of many of them. Years later I was able to spend time in the area and really fell in love with it. Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Newburgh and other towns along the river just have a charm and feel I don't find in many other places. Upstate New York, particularly the east and central regions of it is my favorite place to be.  Retiring up there is my dream but with my wife's family all in the Houston area it's just not very likely. Sigh.

 

 
Anyway, that's it for my '52 Look 'n See group.  Recently I loaded up some cheapies in my cart at COMC but decided to hold off and maybe just pick up a decent copy of both Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Time (and funding) will tell what I do with this set.

1952 Topps Look 'n See Pt. 1

Someone posted a card or two from this '52 Topps Look 'n See set back a few months ago and I decided that I needed a few for my collection. I found a small lot on eBay and I picked it up. It's been so long that I can't remember if it was a B-I-N or Best Offer. Whatever, it wasn't costly and I thought I post the best of the bunch in a couple of posts. It's a neat set containing historical figures on 135 cards. There is plenty of info on the set on the net including this page on the PSA website. Another good resource is the Cardboard Connection site. The set is broken down into several subsets, Famous Americans, Military Men, Inventors, etc. Babe Ruth is the only athlete on the checklist and there are some fairly reasonable examples of his card floating around. I'm not planning to chase many more of these but the Abraham Lincoln and a few others are tempting me.

Not much to add to the cards, the write-up on the back is a bio with a trivia question. The answer is revealed by placing the provided sheet of red cellophane on the back of the card. I've seen the cello sheets on eBay before although there doesn't appear to be one up now.

Obviously my little group isn't in very good shape. I'd rate them as "ATACC"...Acceptable To A Casual Collector. That rendering of Whistler makes him look a bit creepy.

P.T. Barnum looks like an actor but I can't quite place who it might be.

These are 2"x 3", smaller than what we now consider the standard card size. I've scanned one next to a '58 Topps to demonstrate the difference.

One more for this post, Ol Jeff Davis. His name has adorned a bunch of schools and a hospital in my neck of the woods. But little by little that is changing. 

I've got a few more to post. These things are growing on me.