Finding a scrap amongst the remnants

My attempt to build the 1969 Topps football set was short lived. I was earnest in my attempt, but in my heart of hearts, I kind of always knew that it wasn't gonna get very far. 

Aside from a couple of cards, it's not an overly expensive set to collect, and might've been doable had I not been trying to work on so many others at the time. I think I had around 50 cards by the time I stopped working on it. 

Not being that far along, it was actually one of the first sets that fell by the wayside when my interest in set collecting started to wane a couple of years ago. I was trying to narrow my focus down to just a couple of sets at the time, but it was too little, too late. My interest in set collecting was already gone, I just wasn't willing to admit it yet.

Two (three?) years later now, I still have around 40 random 1969 Topps cards just sitting in a box. I took out a few for player collections quite awhile ago, and haven't gone through them again since. That is until just a few weeks ago, when I was trying to see if I had any for somebody else's set build. I didn't end up having any for them, but did after all of this time, find one more thing for me...

I know that I had to have known that there was a puzzle to be made from some of the backs in the set, but with my memory being what it is, and now being a couple of years removed from last seeing one of these backs, it kind of feels like this is a completely new thing to me. I mean I did have them in a binder at one time, meaning that I did have to put them in order, which meant looking at the back --- but still, I just don't remember this puzzle piece.

One of the greatest last names in football history.

Even though I had to have known about the puzzle itself, I apparently only ever got one of the pieces, so I'm almost certain that I never bothered to look up who the puzzle was of.

Image "borrowed" from eBay.

Hey, it's Fran Tarkenton! And hey, I collect Fran Tarkenton! Sure, it's not the greatest image ever, but still... [Also, this isn't the full puzzle, but I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste this one]

Before committing myself to the idea of trying to complete this puzzle, I wanted to make sure that none of the pieces had guys named Starr, Unitas, or Namath on the front. They don't. In fact, the checklist doesn't look too bad at all:

#137 Billy Lothridge

#145 Johnny Robinson

#168 Willie Wood

#174 Steve Stonebreaker

#177 Bobby Walden

#194 Bruce Gossett

#211 Tom Sestak

#219 Darrell Dess

#224 Paul Martha

#256 Jack Snow

There really isn't anyone on there that commands a premium these days. Willie Wood might be a few bucks, but this is definitely doable. So, I'm gonna do it. Or rather, I've already started doing it. With Steve out of the way, I went over to COMC to see if I could knock anyone else off the list.

Seventy cents was all it took to cross Paul's name off of the list. Obviously this won't be in hand for a bit, so try to look past that watermark.

This piece is only slightly more interesting than the one I already had, but after swiping this scan of theirs, I did notice that it's the piece directly above mine.

I am now just one piece away from completing Fran's arm. It doesn't get much more exciting than that! These pieces will probably matchup better color-wise once I get the new one. I cleaned up my scan, but didn't bother with COMC's, hence the difference.

For the moment, Paul was only other one I could get, as I don't want to pay very much for the pieces, but do still want them to be in fairly decent shape. 2 out of 10 isn't a bad start though. I'm not in any hurry to finish this, so I don't mind sitting back and waiting for some better deals to pop up.