Topps 75th: Rails and Sails

While I've been off to a bit of a slow start blogging about cards in 2022, I still have a ton of posts in the queue, just not enough free time to squeeze them in as often as I would like. Among these is today's post about one of my favorite side projects: Topps Rail and Sails.

Recently I was able to add another piece to my rainbow for the 2013 Topps 75th Anniversary set. This time it is the regular base version of the Locomotive 999 card from the original 1955 set. It is an exact replica of the original other than the 75th logo in the upper left and the fact that it is actually 2.5" x 3.5" in size.

Unlike the rainbow version I posted previously on here, this one is printed on the old school card stock and feels just like the originals in hand. Also, while it's hard to see in the scan, the 75th logo is actually done in silver foil, but looks great on the card.

Back to the rainbow thing, there are four different versions out there: base, rainbow foil, modern gloss (/10) and diamond sparkle (/75). I'm halfway there now and hope to grab the other two someday when the price is right. Would make for a really nice display piece.

Topps Rails and Sails Update

Time for another small update on my new favorite train related card set. Topps Rails and Sails is an awesome vintage set that I've been working on for a little while now. It's actually been over a year now since my last update. I'm only looking to pick these cards up when the price is right, so they are likely to be few and far between.

A little while back I was lucky enough to grab a lot of three new cards from eBay for just $8 including shipping. That ends up just over $2.50 per card, which is right around where I want to be as I'm building this set. It's nice to finally be able to show them off.

Up first is my favorite of the lot: card #26 featuring a diesel switcher locomotive from the National Railways of Mexico. The green paint scheme provides a nice contrast with the rest of the card and the artwork surrounding it is excellent. I love the logo in the lower right-hand corner as well. The cards in this set with actual logos look much nicer.

Up next is card #27 featuring a very odd looking rack-rail locomotive from the Mount Washington Railway. There is some really cool engineering going on with this design, especially the way the boiler remains horizontal while the wheels are on the incline.

The last of the three is card #28 featuring an electric coal mining locomotive. This is another one of the oddball locomotives included in the set. While I prefer the standard diesel-electric locomotives that common today, it is still neat to have cards like these.

While progress on this set has been slow, it is definitely one of my favorite side projects. These cards are the oldest in my collection and are a ton of fun to look at and sort through. While having 20 of them is great, there is still a long way to go for me to complete the set.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  20/130 = 15.4%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $32.21

Average Cost per Card: $1.61

Topps Heritage: Transcontinental Railroad

Railroad related cards are one of the newer parts of my collection so I do not have a lot yet, but I am always on the lookout for anything new and interesting to add. In the case of my latest COMC order, I stumbled upon a really neat card from Topps that I just had to have.

This one comes from the 2009 Topps American Heritage set and features an awesome photo of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit. As a fan of American railroading, this card seemed perfect for my growing train card collection.

I didn't even know this set existed until I did a search for railroad related cards on COMC. I'm glad I did as this captures a significant event in the history of the United States. Like some of my other train card posts, I thought it would be nice to include a scan of the back.

I've always been fascinated by the Transcontinental Railroad. When I was a kid I loved watching documentaries about it and have always wanted to visit the place where that final spike was driven into the ground. Click here for some more information about the location in Utah. This is near the top of my railroad destination bucket list.

Topps Rails and Sails Update

Time for an update on my new favorite train related set. In addition to the first four cards I posted recently, I was lucky enough to win another lot from eBay with 13 new cards for my set. There were 16 total, but the last three I already had. Even with the duplicates, I couldn't pass on such a great deal for cads for this many cards from a set like this. 

We'll get thing started with card #1 featuring Locomotive 999 from the New York Central Railroad. This one is the same locomotive featured on the reprinted version from the Topps 75th anniversary set that I posted recently. This one is in great shape considering its age.

Up next we have card #70 featuring an electric locomotive from the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. This one is another great example of the excellent card backs these have. I never knew a lot of the facts on the backs of the cards, like in this case how these trains ran on two different types of power depending on which tracks they were on.

Here is another one for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad that happens to be one of my favorite cards in the set. I've always been more into diesel locomotives and since this set is about the history of railroads leading into the 1950's, they are not as common as in more recent sets.

Up next we have card #33 in the set featuring a 2-8-0 Consolidation type steam locomotive from the Lehigh Valley Railroad. I love the industrial background artwork on this one.

This next one is my first card featuring some rolling stock instead of a locomotive. I really like that the included some cards like this to show off other parts of the railroads. This card featuring a three-dome tank car is #13 in the set.

Card #40 features an experimental locomotive nicknamed Holman's Absurdity. Definitely a different looking steam engine. The odd wheel configuration is something I had never seen before looking at this card. Here is a link to some more information about this loco-motive.

The next one takes us all the way back to Civil War times. Card #56 features a locomotive that was part of some wartime shenanigans that involved Union soldiers sneaking into Confederate territory and stealing it. The best part is their plan failed because they ran out of fuel and water. I love that I keep learning new stuff from this set.

 

Card #8 features another electric locomotive. These were built by the General Electric company and the American Locomotive works and operated on 3000 volts of electricity.

 

Back to some more rolling stock with card #10 featuring a ballast dump car. This one was built by the Clark Car Company in 1924 and has a capacity of 100,000 pounds.

 

Card #62 features something a little bit different with the McKeen Motor Car. I never even knew what these things were before learning about them from this card.

 

Up next we have card #44 featuring another odd looking locomotive: the Muddigger. These were built starting in 1844, so its kind of fitting that it matches the card number.

 

Getting back to more rolling stock we have card #11 featuring a stock car for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. I used to have a bunch of cars like these on my model train layout as a kid.

 

Bringing up the rear of this post is the caboose of course. Here we have card #9 featuring a steel caboose from the Clinchfield railroad that was built way back in 1942.

I have to say I am really enjoying my first vintage set project. These cards are awesome and knowing they are 65 years old makes them that much cooler. They've all been in relatively nice condition too, which is surprising considering I've haven't paid a ton for them yet.

I still have a ways to go before I get anywhere close to full set, but that's ok as this is more of a fun side project that gives me something to search for between other PC pickups.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  17/130 = 13.1%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $24.10

Average Cost per Card: $1.42

1995 Sparta Mountain Train Cards

Now that I am more actively looking for train related cards, I'm finding there are a lot more sets out there than I ever thought possible. Most of what I see on eBay are tobacco type cards and stuff from the Topps Rails & Sails set from the 1950's. Other than those the stuff I do find is pretty random, like those All Aboard sets I posted about several years ago.

Today's post is all about another one of these oddball sets that I had never seen before. It is simply called Train Cards and was produced by Sparta Mountain Trading Cards back in 1995. I wasn't able to find very much information about this set or the company for that matter. The best I could find was this listing from non-sport.com.

The eBay listing was for the complete set of 53 cards, but only a few of them were actually pictured. This made me want it even more as I would be able to open it up and not really know what was all in there. So a mystery pack of train cards from the 90's. Sign me up.

Here is a look at the title card, which is technically not counted as part of the 53 cards. This actually works out perfectly though when filling up nine-pocket pages. I just put this one in the very last spot, theoretically #54, to maintain a proper numbering throughout the set.

As far as the base cards go, there were several different designs. I prefer the horizontal versions as they allow for some excellent photography to be showcased on the cards. The best part is the full bleed with the minimal trim offset slightly inward from the edges.

The first example features an awesome shot of an Algoma Central passenger train on a curved bridge. This could've been an even more spectacular shot if more of the bridge was shown. If I am correct, this is located at the Montreal Falls hydroelectric dam in Ontario. Click here for an example of what I am referring to.

Up next we have the Green Mountain Railroad with a great shot of oe of their green and yellow locomotives. This is a high hood EMD GP9 that was originally built in 1956.

Another railroad I was familiar with beforehand was the Alaska Railroad featured on this next card. The locomotive shown, #1802, is an EMD GP7 that was originally built in 1951. My favorite part of this shot is the barber poll looking crossbuck with the stop sign.

Back to the Green Mountain Railroad, which is based in Vermont, for a look at one of their passenger trains. The locomotive shown here is an Alco RS1 that was originally built in 1948 and is in the same paint scheme as the other one. You can actually still ride these trains, here is a link to the railroad's website for more information.

 

Lastly we have a cool shot from the Grand Canyon Railway. This one is card #50 in the set and features Alco 2-8-0 #18 at the South Rim station. There is not much decoration on the front of this one allowing the photo to take center stage.

This one was cool to see as I was in that exact location last spring. We took a long weekend trip to see the canyon and ride the train from Williams, AZ to the South Rim and back. Obviously, the canyon itself was amazing to see in person and I am really looking forward to going there again someday. There was just too much for us to see in a single weekend.

The train ride was awesome too. I went all in and got us luxury parlor class tickets. That meant our own personal lounge section, a private bar and access to the rear platform of the last car on the train. Below are some photos I took there. The middle is the luxury parlor car we rode in. The bottom right is the same building pictured on the card above.

Overall this was a fun set to check out. I knew most of the trains shown, but there were some I'd never heard of before this set, so that's cool. When I last checked there were still a few complete sets available on eBay from the same seller that I got this one from, just search for 1995 Sparta Trains. Not a bad deal for under $10 including shipping. 

Topps 75th: Rails and Sails Rainbow

Have you ever stumbled upon a card while shopping online that you didn't even know existed and then immediately acquired it for your collection? I'm sure it happens a lot nowadays. This post is about the latest instance of this exact scenario happening to me.

While scrolling through some recent eBay search results for train related cards, I happened to notice a listing for what looked like a chrome refractor type card that seemed out of place compared to the other vintage cards. As it turns out there was a "reprint" of the first card from the original 1955 Rails and Sails set that was included with a newer Topps set.

Here is card #7 from the 2013 Topps 75th Anniversary set. Technically, what I found is the rainbow foil parallel, which is pretty obvious from the scan. It looks even better in person.

While this is a tribute to the original set from 1955, it is a normal sized card (2.5" x 3.5") and printed on modern card stock, but replicates the look of the original almost perfectly. The biggest difference aside from the size is the Topps 75th logo in the upper left.

The back of the card has a nice write up about the original set. Interestingly, it has a note at the bottom listing the size of the original set as 2 5/8" x 3 3/4" overall.

Now I just need to work on tracking down the other three versions of this reprint. There is a standard base version, a Modern Gloss version (#/10) and a Diamond Sparkle version (#/75). This would be a cool "rainbow" to complete for my train card collection. I think this is the only train card I've seen that even has any type of parallel version, so that's neat. 

Anyone else collect anything from the Topps 75th Anniversary set? I never knew about it before and there are some pretty neat cards including The Simpsons, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Back to the Future Part II. Those are some of my favorite franchises so I might need to try and find them too at some point.

Topps Rails and Sails

Vintage cards are one thing that I never really had any interest in, until recently. Now that I'm actively on the hunt for more train cards, I've been looking to add some stuff from the 1955 Topps Rails and Sails set. There are some really cool cards in that set and they would look great with the other train stuff I've accumulated so far, especially the tea cards.

First, a little background information. Rails and Sails was released by Topps way back in 1955. The set has 200 total cards with the first 130 depicting various locomotives and rolling stock. The remaining 70 cards feature various types of boats and ships.

Since I am a train guy and well, my collection my rules, I am only going after the first 130 cards of the set. I could even refer to it as simply "Rails" moving forward, but I think I'll keep labeling the posts with the full name of the set because why not?

As far as the design, the Rails cards have painting-like color photo taking up a majority of the card. Along the bottom there is a brief description of the equipment shown along with name of the railroad that it belongs to. The simplicity is perfect for this type of set.

The backs are every bit as good as the fronts. Unlike most cards I post on here, I am going to make sure I scan and share the back of each card. They each have something unique and the bright colors work very well with the artwork on the fronts.

To get things going for this set, I was lucky enough to find a great deal on eBay my first four cards. I paid $2.99 plus shipping, which worked out to $1.79 per card. Based on some other completed listings I've seen, this was a pretty good deal. Hopefully the first of many.

Up first is card #5 featuring the Southern Pacific Daylight streamliner.

Next is card #3 featuring a Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 type electric locomotive.

Card #4 features and S-type electric locomotive from the New York Central Railroad.

Last is card #6 featuring a camelback locomotive from the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

Now that I have officially have a good start to this set, I thought it would be neat to track my progress and overall spending on it as I go. It will be a kind of challenge to myself to see how cost effectively I can put the whole thing together.

I'm not usually a big spender on singles or small lots, so it will be interesting to see how it goes building a vintage set like this. I care more about the subject matter than condition so I won't be getting hung up on finding mint condition cards, because that would get way too expensive for me very quickly. As long as they're not completely terrible, its all good.

Since this is not just some box set I can buy outright, I'll be doing this the fun way by scouring eBay and other places for the best deals. Maybe even card shows whenever I can get back to doing that again. Its been way too long since I've been to one now.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  4/130 = 3.1%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $7.14

Average Cost per Card: $1.79