A 1953 Topps Willie Mays Leads One Collector’s 2026 Card Goals

The 1953 Topps #244 Willie Mays is the card that could define this collector’s 2026. It would complete the 1953 Topps set, a personal milestone years in the making. The card has topped the collector’s most wanted list since 2019, but previous years brought more attention to scattered purchases from other 1954–59 Topps sets than to the Mays itself. This year, the priority is finally clear.

A well-traveled copy might be available for under $900, by the collector’s estimate. That would be more than twice what went toward vintage singles during all of 2025, close to triple the most ever paid for a card—a 1953 Mantle bought before prices surged—and nearly four times the cost of a 1952 Mays acquired about a decade ago. The price is substantial, but the collector is prepared to make this the year’s only card purchase if that’s what completing the set takes.

A reset after 2025

Last year’s results offer a reason to be cautious about making predictions. The collector grades the 2025 goals a failing mark overall. The biggest shortfall was posting about variants, a subject the collector still hopes to cover but has left off the page year after year. Blog-related swag for readers also stayed on the to-do list.

Tim Wallach cards did arrive, though in smaller numbers than in earlier years: 741 were added in 2025. That’s a sizable haul for a single player, but it fell 1,000 short of 2024, 800 short of 2023 and 3,500 short of 2022. The collector gives this goal a D, measured against a personal pace set over the life of the blog.

The Topps set goal earned a similar grade. Buying the 2025 factory set kept that collection from losing ground, and there was progress on some 1950s sets. Those weren’t sets the collector considers active projects, though, and the money might have been better reserved for the Mays. That budget tradeoff helps explain why the 2026 plan starts with one specific card.

Three priorities, with one clear lead

The first goal is to finish the 1953 Topps set by acquiring Willie Mays. If that happens, the next priorities are more Wallach cards and the 2026 Topps base set. The collector expects to use a factory set again: completing the set through packs is hard to justify on cost, especially when packs may be difficult to find.

Wallach collecting will continue, but without the same effort to hunt through Sportlots for assorted lots and spend roughly $50 several times a year. The shift reads as a matter of focus and budget. The Mays has waited at the top of the list for long enough; the rest can follow.

The ten-card wish list

The annual list of wanted singles remains a tradition, with the 1953 Topps Willie Mays still at number one. “Maybe this is the year,” the collector writes. The other nine choices range across baseball, hockey and basketball, mixing set-building interests with cards tied to memories and favorite players.

At number two is the 1962 Topps Bob Uecker, up from seventh last year. The collector has long wanted the card, but says these “Rookie Parade” cards are difficult to find at a price that feels acceptable. Completing the 1953 set might shape what comes next, though a focus on 1962 Topps isn’t certain.

The 1963 Topps Pete Rose sits third, down from second. The collector’s feelings about Rose have cooled, but the card still carries the force of a childhood collecting memory from the mid-1980s. It remains a long-held want, much like the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier USS Flag, though the collector has no place at home to display that toy.

Fourth is the 1981 Topps Traded Tim Raines, a new entry. The collector already owns many copies of Raines’s 1981 base-set rookie card, but not this Traded card. An earlier effort to collect the small boxed Traded sets faded before adding the 1981 and 1982 editions. Raines is the collector’s second-favorite player, making the gap especially noticeable. The collector also objects to calling the 1981 Traded card a rookie: it’s Raines’s second Topps card, a distinction the collector applies to the 1982 Traded Cal Ripken as well.

The 1985 O-Pee-Chee Mario Liemiuex holds fifth place, unchanged, and is now the collector’s most wanted hockey card. The 1979 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky, long a fixture near the top, has fallen off the list as the collector’s interest shifted.

At six is the 1961 Fleer Dolph Schayes Shoots. Schayes’s basketball story connects to Syracuse: his son Danny played for the Syracuse Orangemen and was among the early stars coached by Jim Boeheim. Dolph Schayes won an NBA title with the Syracuse Nationals.

The 1962 Topps Mickey Mantle is seventh, a card with a family story behind it. The collector’s father owned a collection that survived childhood, though cousins had taken the Cardinals cards before the collector was born. In 1988, the father sold a large portion of the collection to help pay for a family trip to Disneyland. The collector remembers accompanying him to a card show and watching the cards go. This Mantle remains the one they’d most like to bring back.

Eighth is the 2002-03 Upper Deck Henrik Zetterberg, the collector’s favorite NHL player of the past 30 years. The collector thinks Zetterberg may be overlooked for the Hall of Fame, while describing the rookie card as expensive and hard to find for sale. The ninth spot goes to the 1962 Topps Willie Mays, included simply because the collector has always liked the card.

Rounding out the list at ten is the 1956 Topps Roberto Clemente, a design the collector considers among the best-looking Topps cards ever printed. It’s a matter of time, in the collector’s view, before Clemente joins the collection. For now, the 1953 Mays is the card that turns a familiar wish list into a concrete 2026 test.