It certainly seems like the folks here appreciate seeing what others have and projects they are working on, so I thought I'd post this. I'll update it as I make progress.
I started on a set of these back in the early 2000s. However, when I moved to take a new job, I needed to come up with some money and it was something that I could let go and get some good money for.
It was probably about two years ago that I walked into my (then) local card shop in Indianapolis,
Baseball Card Exchange. One of the guys that worked there said "I've got an album of cards you might be interested in," and handed me an album. It was a few pages of 1990s overproduced crap and I was really confused, until I came onto a few sheets of 1955 All-American cards. I'd mentioned to the guys a few times that at some point, I wanted to work on that project again.
I didn't even have to ask and Andy (the shop owner) said he'd sell me all of them for $100. There were some multiples (I believe there were four of one card), but I felt it was a good deal, so I went for it. It was either 33 or 34 cards, so I got them for about $3 apiece. Even though there were multiple and I probably only got about 15 unique cards, I was extremely happy with the deal.
All of the cards were commons and there were some blank spots in the pages so I asked if they had anything else. There had been a Thorpe and two Luckman cards and he'd already listed those on eBay. He took the Thorpe and one Luckman down for me. He also had the Amos Alonzo Stagg PSA graded 7. He sold me those three for $135, which I was pretty happy with as well. I later had the Thorpe graded and got what I felt was a good grade, considering the price I paid.
Before I moved to Texas, I picked up a couple of commons at local shows. Last winter, I posted a couple of pics on Twitter and a guy that I chatted with from time to time told me that he had a couple of graded cards. They were former Tennessee players (he's a big UT fan) and had upgraded, so I picked those up.
I started my blog on April 1 and have documented my pickups since. I'll post them below and also post going forward.
I have two flickr albums of 1955 All-Americans. One is for my set and the other is for my multiples. If anyone else is working on a set and has spares they can trade off, I'm certainly open to trades. They are all low grade, however.
My All-American Set
My All-American Extras
For some reason, it's not allowing me to post links now, so I will "reply" with the links. Hopefully y'all have some enjoyment out of the reads!