McCovey Monday #13

 My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1100 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

This week I thought I would show off a card that is somewhat of an oddball and a fairly early parallel card.  Take a look:

Looks like a pretty standard 1964 Topps card.  I have heard all kinds of commentary about the design from this year.  I am a big fan and am looking forward to 2013 Heritage in hopes of seeing some modern players in this design. I would love to see an insert or base card of McCovey in an action photo in this design as well. The orange lettering and box at the bottom are perfect for the Giants.  I mentioned this is an oddball/parallel.  When you turn this over you would expect to see this:

Lots more of that beautiful orange with Willie's lifetime stats and a trivia question and coin scratch off box.  BTW, Stretch has a pretty nice year in 1963!

Instead, this card, when flipped over reveals this back:

Pretty much the same design and info including the Printed in the USA however that beautiful orange color has been replaced by this dark blackish color.  This is actually a Venezuelan version of the 1964 Topps card.  Topps put out sets in Venezuela in 1959, 60, 62, 64, 66, 67 and 68 and a sticker set in 1972 and 77.  There were various approaches on how many cards were produced, in 1964 the first 370 cards were reprinted and distributed in Venezuela so Willie just made the cut.  He is featured on 2 other cards in this set, Friendly Foes with Leon Wagner (which I have) and the NL HR leaders with Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda and Willie Mays (which I don't).  These cards are fairly rare (for example this one have a BV of $100 while the regular issue card is $25) and many of the ones I have seen have paper loss on the back from being glued into a book of some sort.  I am very happy to have one, especially in this condition, in my McCovey collection.