My Top 30 Favorite Non-Sport Sets of all time, #30-21

Making lists is hard work. I generally avoid ranking parts of my collection, but I'm going to try to do it again. I ranked my Top 20 favorite NBA sets in 2016, when I celebrated my 20th anniversary with that sport. Well, 2017 marks my 30th Anniversary collecting Non-sports cards, so a Top 30 Countdown seems in order. I did the NBA list with each set getting it's own post. That was not as successful as I would have liked, so I will instead do it slightly differently for non-sports. It will be a 4 part series, with part 1 being #30-21, Part 2 being #20-11, part 3 being #10-2, and the "Winner" getting it's own post. At the start, the only number slot I'm absolutely sure on is #1...I will be determining the rest as I go through my collection scan files and begin to create the posts.

This will be entirely objective. This is my personal top 30, not a ranking of the 30 most important or anything. The cards must be present in my collection, and much like the NBA countdown, nostalgia will play a role, although perhaps not as much, as the vast majority of my Non-Sports collection was added as an adult, long after the cards were issued.

Enough talking, let's get to it!

#30. 1989-00 Top Pilot

Top Pilot #128

This multi-year series ran 246 cards, of which I have 84, for 31.4%. It was issued in multiple small sets, which all had a cumulative numbering system, and had photos of actual planes (with a few checklists) making up the set. I didn't begin to appreciate aircraft until 2009, when I joined my local IPMS (International Plastic Modeler's Society) chapter, the Hudson Valley Historical Miniatures Guild. Now, I really enjoy reading about them, and attempting to build models of them, but collecting cards of them is more my style (And I'm actually good at it!) The set was also available in non-sequentially numbered versions that I believe may have had silver foil applied, but I not only don't have any, I've never even seen any, so I'm not totally sure. These made a pretty big impact on me- all of the cards I have from the set I got at one time. The photos were spectacular- 90% or more were while the planes were in flight. Most are in color, if not all, and it is the only time in my card collection that my all-time favorite aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird, shown above, appears.

#29. 1993-98 Bon Air Fire Engines

Fire Engines #373

This set is the largest automotive themed set ever made, it totals 500 cards over 5 series of 100 each, with the final series not produced by Bon Air. It even includes some local fire companies, although I don't have that card(s) yet. This set makes the list because of it's size and because it covers locally, mostly. The "Fire Engines" wordmark is gold foil with s black drop shadow so it looks funny in scans.

#28. 1922 Lambert & Butler Motor Cars

1922 Lambert & Butler's Motor Cars #5

This set is really important to me, because I've completed it! It's a 25 card set. It is, by a WIDE margin, the oldest set I've completed- the next oldest is 1971-72 Topps basketball, 49 years newer than this set. I cheated and bought a complete set- to be honest, I didn't even know it existed until I found it for sale. It featured new cars from 1922, all of which are nearly impossible to see antiques these days. I have seen a 1922 Studebaker, though. Once.

#27 1911 Men of History/Heroes of History

This predates the concept of numbering cards

 The least well-represented set from this countdown in my collection- this is the only one I have, out of 100. But it's super, super important to me- it was my first Tobacco era card. My oldest before then was 1948-49 Bowman, and this jumped the age of my collection back 27 years. It has since been eclipsed- my oldest card as I write this is from 1888, 9 years after the first Non-Sports set was issued. But it will ALWAYS be my first. And even better, the subject matter. Ancient history is very rare on cards. I know of only a few sets that feature any of the Roman Emperors, or any Romans. (Caesar, technically, was never an emperor). Augustus and Nero have cards in the set, and Constantine Might, I don't remember...This set isn't all ancient history, but it is obviously included.

#26 2003 ArtBox Simpsons FilmCardz

2003 Simpsons FilmCardz #16

I'm a huge Simpsons fan...I've seen all but the new episodes dozens, probably hundreds of times. When the NBA/NHL season is not going, I always have FXX on every night except Wednesday. There's not a day goes by that Simpsons are not quoted in my house- usually many times, in fact. This is a cool set, but a little hard to get scans out of- the majority of the card is clear, and the corners are rounded. The image area is quite convex which doesn't help. (they spin around on the scanner tray) It's a small set, 45 cards and a checklist, which I completed from a single box a few years ago. It was the second series they did, and the most recent Simpsons card set produced, unfortunately. I have purchased a sealed box of Series 1, from 2000, but I have not opened it yet.

#25. 1977 Topps Automobiles of 1977

Topps Automobiles of 1977 #16

This was a great concept that unfortunately only happened one year. In this set, Topps issued a card for each new car on the American roads that year- not just from the American brands, but the imports as well. I have exactly 4 cards from this set, and they are all in this terrible condition. 3 of them, but not this one, are treasured by me because they are the only cards that were my dad's. He was not a card collector, but he was a car guy. The rest of the pack must not have survived the basement floods we've had. Someday I want to seriously pursue this set. I wish it had been something that was regular...imagine how great it would have been to be able to collect car cards from every year? To this car nut, it would have been a dream come true. The scans of the three I inherited are not good enough to use, I will rescan them when I find them, currently mixed into my collection. The one thing Topps should have done, though, was include pickup trucks. They did sedans and wagons, and some vans, but nothing with a bed...which means no El Camino card.

#24. 2009 Topps American Heritage / 2009 Topps American Heritage Heroes Edition

2009 Topps American Heritage #113

This set doesn't rank higher because of the way Topps did it. Two sets in the same year, featuring subjects from American history...that concept is all well and good. The problem is...they used the same baseball designs for BOTH SETS. Instead of using any of their other designs- there are other sports besides baseball- they didn't do that. And what's worse, they used the same designs for the subsets in BOTH SETS. Now, if they had been continually numbered, that would have been fine. Even if they didn't use the same design for both set's subsets, as shown above. But no, Topps didn't do that. Both sets start at #1. As a history nut, I love the concept, enough to get it onto this list. But the execution can be pretty darn frustrating when you can look at a card in hand and not have any way of knowing which series it came from without checking the Trading Card Database. I did pull one of the greatest cards in my collection from the box I did of the first set- a piece of wood they took off the USS Constitution when it was redecked in 1972- but this list is only base cards. Honestly, if there was not the frustration of the same design being used for the same card numbers in both sets, both of them would likely have made the list and ranked much higher. I've got a lot more of the first set, the Heroes set, which was actually issued later, I have less than 3 packs' worth.

#23. 1983 Topps Perlorian Cats

1983 Topps Perlorian Cats #33

Look at that picture. There's a whole card set like this. Need I say more? Sadly, I have only one pack. And this is the only set to make the list that's actually stickers. Close enough.

#22. 1955 Topps Rails & Sails

Rails & Sails #21

In the 1950s, Topps had a trifecta of transportation themed sets. All of them were great. This one is the least great (is that a term?) because unlike the other two sets, this one was a mixture. The first 3/4ths of the set were trains, the last quarter were ships. The trains seem to be more common than the ships. I think they could have stood on their own and supported their own sets each. That's why this set isn't higher. Oh, and I forgot to mention- the rails section and sails section use a totally different design. Something that in general irks the heck out of me, so the fact that this is ranked so high should tell you how much I really like these cards.

#21. Church and Dwight Arm & Hammer Useful Birds of America

1918 Useful Birds of America Second Series #24

Issued in seven series between 1915 and 1934, I just love these bird cards. I've written about them extensively- so much that I even gave them their own tag, which you can click on to see the previous posts. I have examples of most of the sets, but for the purpose of this countdown, they all count as one entry, especially considering that they all used the exact same design....which doesn't bother me in this case, because the series number is clearly printed on the back, so there's no confusion as to which set they belong to. I've been a bird watcher longer than I've been a card collector, and that's saying something.

End part 1...next post, counting down #20-11.