1955 bowman complete through 32!

a month ago i announced my intent to complete the 1955 bowman set. since then, i've added a couple of cards, including one that was the final piece needed to have the first 32 cards of the set in hand. that card was al kaline's

which is number 23 in the set. since i want to show the set in order through these posts (here's the first one), even though i had a complete sheet of cards 25-32, i wanted to wait until kaline filled his spot on the 17-24 sheet. and here's that sheet now!

and the backs

not sure what is up with the coloring of bobby avila's card. in addition to kaline, that sheet features another hall of famer in roy campanella, and his brooklyn dodger buddy is don hoak. hoak's card, to me, is one of the most iconic cards i have in my collection (and i have three of them) because it was the first card from the 1950's that i owned and it came to me by way of a trade with a man who lived adjacent to my neighborhood. i've told the story before, but one of my friends told us that a guy down the street from him collected cards, and so we knocked on his door one day in 1979 and asked if he wanted to trade. he said he didn't have any new cards and so took some 1979 topps giants from me and gave me the hoak in return. good times for an eight year old.

here's the next page:

love the minnie minoso card. it features an unorthodox bunting approach in contrast to what johnny temple is displaying. here's the backs

red schoendienst means there are two hall of famers on that page, too.

i hope it won't be too long before i am back with the next page in the set, although i am missing three cards between 33 and 40 right now.

stay tuned!