2013 Collection Goal Update - Stadium Club and Ginter

One of my goals in 2013 is to finish of the base sets of some of my favorite releases.  This was a follow up to my goal of completing the base sets of the flagship releases of Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck since their inception and Topps from the 80s forward.  As you may or may not recall, I didn't quite hit that goal, I still need one card to finish up that quest, a 2003 Fleer Tradition Update #391 Kevin Corriea.  I never did show the last 2 I picked up so here they are:

The Carlos Valderrama was somewhat of anomaly, it is just a regular base card but 2002 Fleer isn't very plentiful.  the Mueller card is a rookie card from an Update set Upper Deck put out in 1997 that was only available via wrapper redemption.  This one comes from series 1 and the set itself is pretty rare and finding singles is very hard.  I actually need this update set, it is one of my gaps in my complete UD set run (along with the 1995 Traded set and the entire 1998 set).  I ended up finding this card as part of a complete Giants team set. 

So let's focus on 2013 goals, although I do need to track down that Corriea card.

One of my goals was to reach 100 followers from the 94 I started the year with. Well for about a week I was at 100 but someone dropped so I am back down to 99.  This one hopefully won't be much of a challenge.

One of my first focuses in 2013 was picking up some missing base cards from my favorite sets.  One of my go to sources for buying bulk commons is Burbank Sportscards through Beckett's Online Marketplace.  I have found that their inserts and parallels are priced pretty high but a majority of commons are $0.25 which isn't so bad since they seem to have almost every card ever released.  The trick is you have to order $50 in cards to get free shipping so I have to do this when I have enough funds in the card budget.

This purchase focused on 4 different brands, two of which I will share today as they finished off the goals.  First up, Allen and Ginter:

I only needed 3 cards to finish this up. I have gotten quite a few through trades which of course is the preferred method.  The biggest get here is the Matt Cain rookie, in addition to being his rookie, it is an SP.  I really enjoy Ginter but have been up and down in my collecting of the entire set.  I believe I just have the 2006, 2010 and 2012 sets.  I do think it will be on my 2013 list to collect and I will definitely chase all the Giants.

The next brand required quite a few more cards. I wasn't sure if I should show them all since that is a lot of Giants cards posted at one time but my reason for collecting this brand is the great photography so enjoy the remaining Stadium Club cards I added to my collection:

These first two scans are from the 1992 set.  I was surprised when I put my want lists together that I needed so many from this set. They seem to be plentiful in the market place but just never came my way.  I really enjoy the Dave Righetti card and how the picture is framed.  I also dig the Kirt Manwaring card showing him in his gear directing traffic.

 Next up are the 3 cards I needed for the 1994 set.  Mike Benjamin was a utility infielder but the picture makes it look like he is winding up for a pitch.  I was in a group break that involved this set last year so that definitely helped keep this list down to a pretty small group.

 This is the 1997 release of Stadium Club and I think the photography is great in this set.  I reall yliek the Bonds card and wonder where the catcher is.  Is he airbrushed out?  Was this a batting practice shot?  Not really sure but I like the looks of it.  The play at second on the Aurilia card involving Brian McRae is pretty nice as well with the Wrigley backdrop.

 The 1998 set has baseball stitches in the corners as one of it's notable design features.  These are raised up and give a uniqueness to the cards.  The think I noticed most when scanning these photos is the yellow fence line in the background of 3 of the 4 cards. If you include the dugout line in the JT Snow card, they all have a line in the background, kinda weird.

And to finish of the Stadium Club Giants print run, a sweet play at second on a 2000 Jeff Kent card - I love how you can see the dirt flying up over the bag- and two 2001 cards.  The Bonds card looks like he just pulled a long drive foul and JT Snow is showcasing his sweet swing.  I really enjoyed watching JT when he was with the Giants.

My goal for these modern base set included 11 different brands so I am 18% done.  This purchase also got me very close to two additional brands and leaves me 128 total cards away from meeting this goal.  I feel pretty confident that with one or two more purchases like this one, a few trades and some other random purchases I should be able to meet this goal.