I began collecting the 1952 Bowman cards back in 1993 when I got sick of the over-production, outrageous prices and sea of inserts that flowed from all the major producers of baseball cards at the time. It made me look elsewhere for my collecting fun. I really like art card rather than photographs, and smaller cards rather than the standard sized cards. 1952 Bowman is both. There was a shop near my place of residence which had a good amount of the cards so I saved my money and after a few months went in with an offer for all of them. I purchased over 50 cards that day at an overall cost of $5.00 a card. Soon after the purchase my financial and marital status changed and my money was better used elsewhere.
Recently I have returned to collecting and my attention was drawn back to the 1952 Bowman set. I decided I would try to finish the set. I began in November of last year and here is my progress summed up until now.
My first task was to find a display area for the set. Many people will just put the cards in a box or binder, but I wanted to see the cards as a whole in one area so I can view them and watch the progression. I found the perfect place in my apartment hallway. I measured the space and it was perfect. The set has 252 cards and the wall measured exactly 14 top loaders across and fit 18 top loaders down. I used blue sticky putty to attach the top loaders and filled every top loader with a card if it was available. Here is what the results look like:
As you can see everything fits perfectly. Here are the purchases I made since I returned to collecting the set:
Completion Percentage: 57.14% (144/252)
I will keep posting as I make purchases and update the wall.
If you would like to see all the cards and what I paid for each one just go to the 1952 Bowman page here or you can see it in the menu items on the top left of evey page/post on the site. page.