My hopeless quest to collect the 1999 APOH 500 Home Run Auto

Topnotchsy · Dec 25, 2014

I know that I'll never complete the set, and it will likely be very, very slow going, going forward, but I thought I'd make a thread to track my progress in building the 1999 A Piece of History 500 Club Auto set. I will likely look to move many of my other items to make it possible to fund future purchases, though in all likelihood many of these will be beyond the budget. I am toying with the idea of only targeting the players who were in the 1999 set, since I'm not sure I can see forking out serious money for the Sosa, Palmeiro or McGwire even if the chance to buy them came up. Beyond those it's just Griffey, and while I'd love to own the Griffey, I'm not sure I'd be willing to shell out what it would take. Of course, this would mean limiting what is already a very limited project, so we'll see...

Hank Aaron 28/44

Ernie Banks 10/14

Reggie Jackson 14/44

Eddie Mathews 20/41

Willie McCovey 8/44

Topnotchsy · Dec 25, 2014

And I was just able to work out a deal for this one:

Hawk8 · Dec 25, 2014

Looks like you have a good start!

gt2590 · Dec 26, 2014

Banks AND Frank Robinson? You don't even need the rest...

Topnotchsy · Jan 9, 2015

Hawk8 said:
Looks like you have a good start!

I was able to get a few at once in a lot (in the most expensive purchase I've ever made by quite a margin) which definitely helped!

gt2590 said:
Banks AND Frank Robinson? You don't even need the rest...

The Banks was literally the first time I had ever seen a scan of the scan; his basically never shows up. And Robinson has to be one of the most underrated players in the Hall. Truly one of the all-time greats and he gets almost no attention. Thankfully that meant that despite being /20, so more than twice as rare as McCovey, Jackson, Aaron and Mathews, it wasn't too expensive (by the standards of this set, so of course it was still 100x the cost of other Robinson auto's...)

Zan · Jan 9, 2015

Great set to try. It doesn't have to be an immediate thing! I think a process and a hunt will keep you going, rather than getting them all in a short period of time.

goobmcnasty · Jan 9, 2015

I've never seen the Banks. Nice find

homerun28aa · Jan 9, 2015

Great start. I've seen these but I'm not too familiar with the entire set - what's the full set checklist of guys who have this card?

RStadlerASU22 · Jan 9, 2015

Good luck ! And nice start for sure.

Ryan

jeff_bichel · Jan 9, 2015

I find it interesting that 3 of them have the same jersey number 44

Topnotchsy · Jan 9, 2015

Zan said:
Great set to try. It doesn't have to be an immediate thing! I think a process and a hunt will keep you going, rather than getting them all in a short period of time.

Absolutely. My wallet couldn't come close to affording them at once anyways...

goobmcnasty said:
I've never seen the Banks. Nice find

Was pretty cool to find, since as mentioned I'd never seen it either. (I made a post a whole back where I "collected" scans of each card from the set and the Banks was the last one and I could not find an image until this one...)

homerun28aa said:
Great start. I've seen these but I'm not too familiar with the entire set - what's the full set checklist of guys who have this card?

Here is the list. There is also a Ruth Cut that is A Piece of History, but technically not part of the 500 Home Run set.

These were spread across Upper Deck sets in 1999:
536HR Mickey Mantle CUT 1

EBAU Ernie Banks 14

EMAU Eddie Mathews 41

FRAU Frank Robinson 20

HAAU Hank Aaron 44

HKAU Harmon Killebrew 3

MSAU Mike Schmidt 20

RJAU Reggie Jackson 44

TWAU Ted Williams 9

WMA Willie Mays 24

WMAU Willie McCovey 44

These players had cards in later releases:
KG Ken Griffey, Jr. 25

RPAU0 Rafael Palmeiro 25

SMMC Mark McGwire 25

SSAU Sammy Sosa EXCH 21

These 3 will almost definitely never be in the budget:

Mantle
Harmon Killebrew

Ted Williams

And I've been debating on whether to consider going after the newer guys. They aren't cheap and I'm not sure I care to spend for Palmeiro, Sosa and McGwire.

RStadlerASU22 said:
Good luck ! And nice start for sure.

Ryan

Thanks!

Topnotchsy · Feb 14, 2015

Big Mac McGwire · Feb 15, 2015

Your progress so far is already EPIC. You have already put together a group that is ridiculously insane. I wish you great luck as I am jealous and in awe of your set so far. Look forward to seeing your posts over the years with this set. Only one I have is my guy as this set is way too Rich for me.

michaelstepper · Feb 15, 2015

Absolutely beautiful! Love the progress
I'd love a few of the bat cards themselves. I have a hard time spending large amounts of money on plain GU items.

cbrandtw · Feb 15, 2015

I saw the Mays and other 2 listed the other day and immediately thought of you. Great addition. Congratulations

Topnotchsy · Feb 15, 2015

Big Mac McGwire said:
Your progress so far is already EPIC. You have already put together a group that is ridiculously insane. I wish you great luck as I am jealous and in awe of your set so far. Look forward to seeing your posts over the years with this set. Only one I have is my guy as this set is way too Rich for me.

I appreciate that. Your McGwire is an awesome card!

Right now my focus is on the one's from 1999, and I know that there are a few there's almost no chance I'll ever be able to go after, so there's a only 1-2 more that I am really focused on.

michaelstepper said:
Absolutely beautiful! Love the progress
I'd love a few of the bat cards themselves. I have a hard time spending large amounts of money on plain GU items.

It's a gorgeous set. I have many of the non-signed cards as well. Feel free to pm me if you want to discuss maybe working on a deal on one or more of those.

cbrandtw said:
I saw the Mays and other 2 listed the other day and immediately thought of you. Great addition. Congratulations

I appreciate that. The Mays was the only one of the 3 I did not have, and it's really cool to be able to add it!

mrwhitesox30 · Feb 15, 2015

It's a beautiful and daunting set to collect. Instead of shelling out big bucks for the autographed versions, you could always buy the un-autographed versions as placeholders until you can upgrade.

brian26 · Feb 15, 2015

Great thing about the sigs on these classic players...you can read every one of them. They are all epic. None of this squiggly line or two initials garbage. Just awesome autographs.

Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

My hopeless quest to collect the 1999 APOH 500 Home Run Auto

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

Well-known member

Super Moderator

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

Active member

Active member

Active member

Active member

New member

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

New member

Well-known member

Active member

Featured Contributor, The best players in history?

New member

Member

Similar threads

Log in