It seems to be a normal part of the human condition to want what we can’t have.

The fastest, most expensive car …

The most beautiful girl in school …

The perfect job …

The World Series winning team …

We’ve lusted after them all at some point or another.

So it’s no surprise that baseball card collectors are infatuated with the impossible — or at least the improbable — too.

Who wouldn’t love to own a T206 Honus Wagner card?

Or stumble onto a pile of pristine 1952 Topps unopened packs while cleaning out dear old Uncle Abner’s attic once he’s gone?

And to put it in more current terms, isn’t the allure of “hitting the jackpot” what the modern chase card phenomenon is all about?

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Happy 20th Anniversary!

I got an early introduction to the enticement of cardboard impossibility when I stumbled upon the 1982 K-Mart boxed set during my first year of real collecting in 1983.

Even then, the Topps-produced set was considered to be cheap, overproduced trash by most hobbyists, and I picked up the whole shebang for less than a dollar — 25 cents if I remember correctly.

For me, though, it was one of the best investments I could have made in my budding hobby, for a few reasons.

First, the K-Mart set taught me who the MVPs were in each league from 1962 through 1981. I was in sponge mode at that point, sucking up everything I could about the game, and K-Mart gave me a crash course in who the biggest superstars of the previous 20 years had been.

Between this set and the 1983 Topps Foldouts issue that I nabbed from the local drug store, I learned more about baseball’s hierarchy than I could have from watching a season’s worth of This Week in Baseball or The Game of the Week.

But the K-Mart cards didn’t just teach me about baseball — they introduced me to exotic baseball cards I never even knew existed.

By illustrating each of the K-Mart cards with a miniature replica of the player’s Topps card from the year he won the MVP, Topps created an early version of the hyperlink, pasteboard style.

Follow the Cardboard Trail

I’d thumb through the K-Mart cards, studying the photos on the front to get a feel for the vintage designs depicted and devouring the copy on the card backs to see just how good the MVP winner really was.

Then I’d “follow” that card out to other resources I had.

Some players had kid-focused biographies that made it to our school library, and I read all of those I could get my hands on.

Some then-current players appeared elsewhere in my collection, and I’d dig those cards out to see what else I could learn.

And all the players appeared in my handy dandy price guide that I poured over in my spare time.

But not all the cards showed up in that price guide.

The White Whale

I was like pretty much every other kid who collected baseball cards back then.  We loved the hobby for all its intangibles — nostalgia for earlier times, the community of collectors, the aesthetics of the cards, the smell and feel of the cards, the irresistible allure of player statistics.

But we were also in awe of the big dollar values attached to some of the cards in our price guides, and we all dreamed of the day our collections would be filled with cardboard gold.

Well, I was pretty convinced for awhile that I’d found the hobby Shangri-La with my little K-Mart set.

In one slender box, I’d managed to assemble a collection that included a 1962 Mickey Mantle, a 1966 Frank Robinson, a 1969 Boog Powell (snicker!) , a 1973 Pete Rose, a 1975 Fred Lynn, a 1980 Mike Schmidt, and so many more.

I could look them all up in my price guide — even though the card numbers on the back didn’t quite match up — and I could see that I was suddenly quite an advanced collector.

There was one card, though, that I just couldn’t reconcile with what the “book” had to offer.

As far as I could tell, there was no 1962 Topps Maury Wills card.

That bothered me, and I filed it away for later use, but I didn’t let it stop my enthusiasm for the K-Mart set or collecting in general.

I wasn’t quite as sure about the value of my budding empire, though.

The Maury Truth

Maybe I wasn’t the only one confused by the K-Mart set in general and the Maury Wills card in particular because it wasn’t long before I came across the story of the Wills-Topps flap that kept the speedster out of Topps issues until 1967.

I have no idea where I originally read the tale — Sports Collectors Digest? — but you can find a pretty thorough modern account at The Wax Fantastic.

Basically, someone at Topps made the determination — maybe with the help of some scouting input — that Wills wasn’t a viable Major Leaguer and failed to sign him to a card contract when he was about to break through in 1959.

Depending on the version of the story you read, Topps’ disbelief either miffed Wills or led him to sign an exclusive contract with Fleer, who had dreams of producing baseball cards but faced several hurdles.

Whichever account is the truth, I soon had to come to grips with my own truth: Topps never issued that beautiful Maury Wills card in 1962. Rather, they created it from whole cloth in order to complete their run of MVP winners in the 1982 K-Mart set.

Deep in my heart, though, I really wanted there to be a 1962 Wills card out there. Maybe Topps produced a proof version that never made it to market because of contract issues with Wills?

I already knew about the 1977 Reggie Jackson Orioles proof, so I held out irrational hope.

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An Elusive Favorite

Though I never got even a sniff of a hint that there really was a 1962 Topps Wills card beyond the K-Mart set, Maury became one of my favorite non-Hall-of-Fame players from the 1960s.

He was a speedster so fast that you couldn’t even catch him on film, apparently. By the time Topps did slow him down long enough for a shot, he appeared as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates on his 1967 card (#570). It was Wills’ de facto rookie card and, as a high number in a popular vintage set, it commanded a nice premium.

But as great as that card was, it did not show a primetime Wills in his famous Los Angeles Dodgers blue, and I just couldn’t accept it as his rookie card. It debuted eight years after the man himself did, for gosh sake.

Fortunately, Fleer kept tilting at windmills and pushing their invisible flywheel in the years between Wills’ rookie season and his MVP win in 1962.

They followed up their Ted Williams set with two issues of retired (or dead) greats.

In 1963, though, Fleer threw caution to the wind and pumped out a set of 67 cards that featured many of the biggest names in the game. Issued in packs with a cherry-flavored cookie (!), the set was designed to be something much grander until a Topps lawsuit stopped Fleer cold.

It would be another decade-plus until Fleer took up the battle again in earnest, and another 18 years before they hit the market in full force, but the truncated 1963 Fleer issue righted one baseball card wrong.

Finding the One

After four years in the Majors, Maury Wills finally had a baseball card printed by a major manufacturer and it came just in time to celebrate his MVP award with the Dodgers.

I resisted the legitimacy of the Fleer set for years, writing it off as a fluke and an abomination that should never have existed. It was all colored by my irrational lusting for the Maury Wills woody that was never born.

But my Moby Dick is dead — there is no 1962 Topps Maury Wills card (reprints/Archives/Heritage don’t count).

That’s OK, though, because we have the best slab of cardboard from 1963 to salve our wounds and right our wrongs.

Thanks to the 1963 Fleer Maury Wills card, we (or at least I) can move on.

(Read all about this 30-day challenge — and jump in on the fun — right here.)

Check out available 1963 Fleer Maury Wills cards on Amazon.

But even with that avalanche of cardboard bearing down on us, there are never quite enough cards, are there? And there surely aren’t enough vintage cards, especially when it comes to players missing from our favorite sets.

Or places we think Topps or Fleer or Bowman could have done better.

Or the chance to get the right player in the right uniform and the right card design.

Luckily for us, we live in the digital age, which means just about any card we can imagine can become reality in the right artistic hand.

If you love the idea of these “Cards that Never Were” as much as we do, check out these 10 websites. They’re among the best in the business when it comes to custom cards, and they’re just sitting there, waiting for you to dig in.

Mets Fantasy Cards

The tagline for this site says it all: Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought to Be!

Mets superfan Warren Zvon has put together this excellent site over the course of more than four years. As you might guess, the focus is on Mets baseball, touching on most aspects of the game in Gotham.

But the real drawing cards are Zvon’s creations — the Mets cards that never were … or at least that weren’t done to Zvon’s satisfaction.

The result is an explosion of blue and orange e-cardboard splendor that any true collector will love, even Mets haters.

Card You Will Love: 1962 Topps Gil Hodges

Cards that Never Were

This site exists solely for the purpose of treating the world to cards that never were, so how could we NOT include it on our list.

John Hogan has spent more than six years on this labor of love and during that time has graced us with more than 700 posts and thousands of his custom creations.

If you’re going to visit this site, just be warned — you may lose a few hours of your day!

Card You Will Love: 1973 Topps Willie Stargell All-Star

Topps Cards that Never Were

With more than three solid years under his belt, Jeremy has filled his blog with hundreds of custom creations all done in the style of various Topps issues.

One of the nice features of this site is the categorization that allows you to zero in quickly on what you’re looking for, like missing Topps cards or coaches cards.

Card You Will Love: 1979 Topps Dick Pole

Bob Lemke’s Blog

Bob Lemke was a giant in the hobby who rose to prominence with Krause Publications, serving as a writer, editor, and publisher for heavyweight periodicals like Baseball Cards Magazines and Sports Collectors Digest. He also wrote and edited countless books over the years.

After his retirement in 2011, Lemke turned some of his hobby attention to his blog, where he created some of the best Cards that Never Were you’ll ever see.

Though Lemke passed away in January of 2017, his work lives on in his words and in his digital cardboard creations.

Card You Will Love: 1970 Topps Carlton Fisk

The Shlabotnik Report

Joe Shlabotnik maintains a very active blog about baseball cards, and he regularly touches on many aspects of the hobby.

Probably my favorite part of Joe’s excellent site, though, and the most important part for this list, are his custom card creations.

Joe has been at it for at least five years, and his customs are gorgeous. And, although he focuses mostly on current players, there are plenty of classic designs to satisfy even old-timers like us.

Card You Will Love: 1978 Topps Anthony Rizzo

Baseball Cards that Never Were

This site features the creations of TJ Dio, labeled as “What-If? Sports Card Digital Art.”

Although there are only a few offerings on the site and the blog hasn’t been updated in a good while, vintage collectors will enjoy the fresh look at some of our favorite sets.

TJ has some fun with player selection, too!

Card You Will Love: 1976 Topps Sam Malone

White Sox Cards

Steve Gierman has been running this blog dedicated to Chicago White Sox cards for a solid decade, which makes him one of the elder statesmen on our list.

During that time, Steve has touched on all aspects of White Sox cards, from reviewing sets to spotlighting White Sox birthdays to breaking out ChiSox cards by uniform number.

But it’s Steve’s work in creating custom White Sox cards that really drew me to his blog and that I think will have you going back again and again.

Card You Will Love: 1962 Topps Ted Kluszewski

Uncle Doc’s Card Closet

Uncle Doc’s Card Closet (the blog) closed up shop in 2015, but not before Doc created a bevy of Topps cards that never were.

Don’t eat these all in one sitting, because they’re all there is!

Card You Will Love: 1980 Topps Thurman Munson

Johngy’s Beat

Billing itself as, “Your 316th Best Source for Pop Culture Nuggets,” Johngy’s Beat is not your typical baseball card blog.

In fact, it’s much more than a baseball card blog, with post categories ranging from Chicago Bandits to Celebrity Jersey Cards to Friendly Encounters, and many more.

But don’t let the eclectic lineup fool you — Johngy’s builds some of the best custom baseball cards around, and you’re bound to find something you’ll love among the large and expanding gallery.

Card You Will Love: 1975 Topps Dick Billings

Off the Wall

Off the Wall is “Home to another Red Sox baseball card collector,” according to the site’s tagline.

That may be true, but OTW is more than just another blog if you like cardboard eye candy you’ll never encounter in “real” life — particularly Boston Red Sox cards.

Check out site owner Shane Katz’s custom creations here.

Card You Will Love: 1963 Post Bob Turley

When Topps Had (Base)Balls

When it comes to prolific custom e-cardboard creation, Giovanni Balistreri of When Topps Had (Base)Balls has few rivals.

After churning out basically a post a day — most or all with a “card that never was” included — Giovanni has packed his site with enough make-believe beauties to keep you in awe for hours.

Card You Will Love: 1977 Topps Mickey Mantle Turn Back the Clock

Bobw’s Custom Baseball Cards

Although not updated very frequently, Bobw’s Custom Baseball Cards is a real treat for collectors of vintage cards across multiple sports.

Bob has spent years collecting awesome sports images, and he uses them to great effect in creating these custom cards.

Thanks to Tony Lehman (@OffHiatusBBC) for turning me onto this neat site!

Card You Will Love: 1954 Topps Cleveland Indians (I want that Luke Easter!)

Do you know of other great places on the web to find Cards That Never Were? Let me know in the comments below or by email at adam@waxpackgods.com.