Year: 1975
Manufacturer: Topps
Set: Flagship
Card Number: 223
Card Type: Base
Over the course of the next few weeks I want to feature each of Robin's Topps Flagship cards in chronological order, from 1975 to 1994. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile now and I know I've probably feature a few of the cards before, but what can you do? I'm also toying with doing this for his Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Score cards, but I'll probably break up the series'.
First up is Robin's rookie card out of the classic 1975 Topps set. Robin broke into the league in 1974. As a matter of fact Robin was on the roster and played during the Brewers opener on April 5th, 1974, they lost to the Red Sox. So why wasn't Robin in the '74 set? Well 1974 was the first year Topps switched from issuing their product in series' and put the whole set out all at once. So where Robin might have been in one of the later series', there was none. And the traded set was exclusively for traded players. Robin had to wait till 1975 to grace cardboard.
The 75 set is pretty iconic and a hobby favorite. I didn't realize the card I chose to scan was so mis-cut, but I wasn't going to dig out another card. I currently have 5 1975 Topps Yount rookies in my collection all in varying conditions. But it's so true what they say, "You never forget your first." I would love to say that the card scanned was my first Yount rookie, but to be honest I can't remember which one it was anymore. But I vividly remember when I picked my first rookie up.
I was living over seas in Germany. My father was in the army and stationed in Berlin. We got there just after the Wall fell in December of 1989. Berlin was a divided city not just East and West, but in the Western sector between the British, French, and Americans. The US didn't have a centralized base in the city, rather it was spread out in what they called Kasernes. I can remember going over to the Air Force Kaserne, called McNair, and they hosted a periodic sports card show. It's there I met a guy who had a ton of vintage cards there with him and he was going around asking what people collected. I had set up a table selling as many singles as I could from my dupes. The guy had asked me who and what I collected and I told him I was a Brewers collector and really liked Robin Yount. He came back a few minutes later with a 75 Yount rookie. We talked for awhile and I took the card home for about $50. I thought I'd gotten a good deal then. Robin's rookie cards were still commanding around $200 and while the one I got wasn't in mint condition it was a card I'd never thought I'd own. I can say that's the most I ever spent on one of my rookie cards, but it's still a great memory.
