A Big Oddball Purchase

I little while back I was surfing eBay and ran across a Rickey Henderson card that I had been searching for for years, probably back to the late 80s when I started collecting him.  As I tend to do I looked to see if the seller had combined shipping and when I saw that he did, I did a little search.  Lucky for me he had the team name listed in the title - there is nothing better for a team collector. 

I went a little wild, he had so many different oddballs that I wanted that I had a hard time stopping.  I ended up with over 30 cards that I thought I would share.

These are super cool and actually cards I had never seen before.  I had bought and traded for some that were similar but not these that have the red border and big bubbled card number in the upper right corner.  One great thing about my team having such a long and illustrious history is that quite a few Great Feats have occurred throughout their history.

I am a HUGE fan of the small box sets put out by Fleer in the late 80s/early 90s.  I actually thought I had most of these and was surprised how many I found on this spending spree.  I will continue to keep my eyes open and suspect there may be a 2014 collecting goal surrounding these issues if my sets aren't complete by year end.

This is a random assortment.  The Mitchell and Williams HR Derby cards were some I had never seen.  The Swell set Mays wasn't on my team checklist even though I had other cards from the set on it, kind of odd.  I always like to score cards that aren't on my checklist.  Poor Mike Krukow, he sure isn't photogenic, this picture on the BK card and the one above are not very flattering.  I couldn't believe I didn't have the Jack Clark Kelloggs in my collection and glad I was able to pick it up.

This trio comes from more recent releases with 2 blue parallels from 2012 Panini Cooperstown and a red refractor of 2007 Topps Chrome.  The red doesn't look too great for the Giants but suspect would look spectacular with a team like the Reds.

Here is a group of Topps cards from some random sets.  The Mel Ott photos is classic, amazing he hit over 500 HRs with that high leg kick. Both the Mays and Robby Thompson are cards I would have sworn I already had but they weren't on my checklist or in the Giants binder.  The Monte Irvin All Time Fan Favorites was one of the last cards I needed to complete one of my 2013 collecting goals.

And the card that started it all, a 1983 Permagraphics Super Star of Rickey Henderson.  I had the gold parallel of this card but had not been able to find a reasonably priced one for my collection in over 20 years of searching.  I was one of the oldest Rickey's I needed and I was happy to scoop it up.

I haven't gone back to do any searches from this seller but do have him bookmarked as a favorite.  I am a little scared because I tend to lack some self control when it comes to non-standard issue cards.  Maybe next month I will try to set aside some of the budget to see what else I can find.