McCovey Monday #65 - Sweet LCS Auto Pickup plus a teammate

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1200 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.

Last week I went by my LCS and saw a beautiful card in the case of my favorite player of all time. The price tag was more than I typically pay for a McCovey auto but I asked to see it anyway.  He had it priced at $100 but quickly told me he would take less and hopped on his computer.  He had put it up on eBay with a $100 or best offer and had gotten an offer for around $40 which he declined.  He offered it to me for $35 which I jumped on.  Here is the card:

 Even though it lacks the SF on his hat, I think this is a great looking card.  I love being able to see his #44 on the back of his jersey and the slight smile.  The card is nice and thick and sports an on card autograph is a nicely place white box that allows the auto to pop.  The little blue corners makes this a blue parallel and sports a low 09/10 serial number.  I was super happy to pick it up and wasn't planning on picking up any other singles but then this caught my eye:

Another Immaculate auto of Willie's former teammate HOFer Gaylord Perry.  This is the Heroes subset and as you can see is serial numbered 23/25, another nice low number.  This card sports Panini's typical cut off head but I still think the design works and the card looks great.  The on card auto adds to the cards beauty. This one had a $40 or $50 price tag on it but I was able to pick it up for $20, a great price in my opinion.

For $55 I was able to pick up two awesome cards for my collection, this is why I stay away from box breaks and stick to picking up singles.  He had a couple other cards in the display case that caught my eye that were a little too rich for my blood but knowing he will give me pretty steep discounts, I am going to have to see what else I can score.

My Heritage Dilemma

I am a fan of vintage baseball sets.  I would love to own every Topps flagship set ever produced at some point in my life and am currently working on the 1970-1972 sets after finishing 1973 earlier this year.  I now have every set from 1973 forward along with the sets from 1959 and 1960.

Topps Heritage has been a way to get an annual fix of the classic designs without the vintage prices.  I have collected the set for the past 3 years and have built the set a couple other years.  The stretch from 1963-65 is one of my favorites from a design perspective so even though I decided to try and cut back on the number of sets I was chasing in 2014, I couldn't pass up the 1965 design.  Yesterday I received the last card I needed in the mail:

None other that the recently retired Mr. Yankee Derek Jeter.  This was a high number card and I ended up paying more than $10 to purchase it on eBay which kind of ticks me off.  First, Topps made most of the high numbers stars which drove up the prices.  This was exasperated by it being Jeter's final year.  I was planning on waiting on this to get below $8 just to feel a little better about the situation but I got impatient and pounced.  Set complete, yeah!

Now a face somewhat of a personal dilemma, do I collect Heritage next year.  Topps will be starting on a stretch of 2 years where the designs do nothing to excite me.  I will continue to attempt and streamline the sets I collect and allow for other collection focuses to earn my limited card budget.  I will certainly go after all the Giants but I am leaning towards skipping the set.

Do any other collectors plan on going after the 2015 Heritage set?  Any thoughts on the Heritage line as we inch forward in time?

COMC Black Friday Purchase #4 - The Final Cards

My plan was to post most of these last weekend and share my final 2 McCovey pickups last Monday on McCovey Monday but you know how it goes.  Life gets busy plus I have been spending most of my time in my hobby room with a big push to get some cards cataloged and organized. Making big progress but I want to get these COMC purchase done and share some good stuff I have gotten in through trades and purchases recents.

While I was scouring COMC I decided to do a quick search on one of my player collections, Ben Petrick, for serial numbered cards.  I was able to find 7 cards that I needed for reasonable prices. Check out these cards that will bring you right back to around the turn of the century.

 With Petrick being a catcher, there are tons of great action photos of him in his catchers gear.  The card in the top row middle is a great example. I also really like the Prism cards in the bottom row, need to chase a rainbow of that.

 The Prism cards have the serial numbering on the front so I decided to flip the other 5 to show off the serial numbers.

Next up a couple McCovey's I knocked off the want list.

This is the Onyx parallel from 2012 Topps Triple Threads.  This gets me within the Sapphire (/25) and Ruby (1/1) from the rainbow.

Staying with the Triple Threads McCovey theme, I also picked up this relic from 2013 Triple Threads. A nice big piece of bat wood and the card is numbered 25/27.  I was very happy to pick this up for $6.

Finally I picked up 3 additional cheap Giants hits.  The first two are the only 2 Giants autographed featuring Giants in 2014 Bowman Platinum.  I figured this was like a team set.  Neither of these guys is projected to light the world on fire but I do believe Gregorio was just added to the 40 man roster.

My final card is this 2000 Playoff Absolute relic of Jeff Kent featuring an Authentic Game-Used Base from the Giants home opener.  I really like the design on the front of this card.

 However what really struck me was the back.  Not only does the card state that the base is authentic, it gives the date it was used and a photo of the base.  This is how relics should be done.

I don't know about you but I would take a tenth of the relics being inserted into products if we could get information like this authenticating the memorabilia.

That is it for my COMC Black Friday purchases.

COMC Black Friday Purchase #3 - Giants

Installment 3 of COMC Black Friday purchase showcases my Giants Base, Inserts and Parallels.

One of my goals in 2014 was to keep on top of all the base cards that are released featuring the Giants.  I am doing a good job this year and after this purchase I am just a few Classics and Update cards away from having them all. 

The Giants frustratingly had 6 cards in the Heritage SP portion of the set this year meaning I needed 2 of each since I was also going after the set.  These were my final 3 and I was able to score them for under $2 each so it wasn't too back.  I also needed 3 Stadium Club base cards. This set is fantastic and I am almost finished completing the base set.  I plan to show off the entire base set at some point, the photography is amazing.

One of my other goals was filling in the Giants base gaps from 2011-2013.  With this 10 card purchase I am still 23 cards away with most of them being pretty scarce.

The Panini America's Pastime cards are really nice, they are a pretty thick card stock and limited to 125.  Serial numbered base cards are a pain for team collectors and I have been slowly working on this Giants team set.  I don't think a ton of this was cracked either.  I am still in need of Pence and Posey, the Posey probably won't come cheap.  2013 Turkey Red base cards seem to be in short supply, I was finally able to secure a Posey but still need a Lincecum.  There aren't any available on Sportlots or COMCs and the only 2 on eBay are $5 plus shipping.

Until I recently picked up one in a lot of cards, I had forgotten to include these mini Bowman Chrome cards on my Giants checklist.  Fortunately I was able to finish of the team set quickly with these 6 for under 50 cents each.  Finally a Pablo Sandoval from 2012 Panini Signature Series.  I don't remember this being release and have found very few of these base cards on the secondary market.  This is  the first of 3 Giants I have been able to track down.  Not a great looking card but I will still be on the lookout for the final 2.

I also added a few inserts to the bucket and brought them home.

I really enjoy the shiny inserts from this year's Donruss release and was able to get reasonably priced MadBum and Panda shinies.  Crick is the Giants top prospect and apparently was #18 on Bowman's top 100 and is dicutting dually with A's prospect Billy McKinney.  The Lincecum Prizm insert features the short haired Timmy and a chopped off head.  The 1994 designed Buster Finest card looks great.

The final pick ups are all parallels.  There were tons available and I tried to focus on team sets I could complete or make progress on those within striking distance.

The top row completed the Blue /500 and the Hometown parallels for the Bowman set.  The bottom row is the entire Bowman Prospects Blue /500 set which matches well with the base parallel set.

 For the third year in a row, after going hard after a Giants rainbow in 2011, I haven't done a great job in picking up Topps Chrome Giants.  I did decide to pick up these Refractors to finish that set.  I already had finished the Purple set.  Otherwise I am only 2 or fewer cards into the 7 card team set with any other parallel.

I was a big fan of the Career and Season stat lines cards from prior Donruss releases so I decided to pick these up.  I now have 6/10 career stat line Giants and 3/10 season stat lines.  Three of the season cards I need are pretty short printed so I don't know if these sets will ever get done.  Hembree is the only Giant (now former Giant in the Jake Peavy trade) in the Rookies set so this completes that one.

The final 4 cards are all pretty cool pickups.  The Mays in the copper parallel and finished off the 2 card team set. I wish there were more Giants in this base set as it is one of my favorite designs of the year.  The white framed Gypsy Queen cards are also pretty nice and like Pablo's picture on this one.  The Sandoval Camo card gets me 1 card away from that team set.  The Cain was an impulse buy. It is the Orange framed Die Cut and is serial numbered 57/60.  A cool looking card and it was reasonably priced.

I knocked of a decent chunk of my Giants want lists on this purchase, one of my favorite Black Friday activities.

COMC Black Friday Purchase #2 - Set Needs

Yesterday I showed off 4 new Willie McCovey Prizm parallels from my Black Friday purchase off COMC.  Typically one of my primary focuses on Black Friday is to try and finish off some sets.  The last couple years I have picked up Archives and Heritage SPs. This year the Archives weren't happening, the inventory was thin and very expensive.  My LCS was telling me that some vendor bought up all the excess inventory from Archives and is hoarding it. At the prices the SPs are going for I am going to need an infusion of those stowed away cases in order to get my set complete.

I was able to knock of 4 of the last 5 SPs I needed for Heritage:

I got these for really solid prices, all under $2.  The last card I need is Derek Jeter.  There were only three for sale on COMC with the lowest being $14.25.  Ebay is no better.  If you happen to have one and are willing to trade it, let me know. Coincidentally, I pulled a Jeter in action parallel and sold it on Sportlots a few weeks back. Maybe I should have kept it for my set.

Next up is a football set I have decided to put together.  These are all SPs from 2013 Topps Football Archives.

 While I can't stand the Cowboys the Too Tall Jones is probably my favorite. I love that set design from 1983 and the All Pro designation is awesome.  I also liked picking up the Super Rookie of Ickey Woods, I like his new commercial on TV.  I am now within 4 cards of finishing off this set.

 Finally some miscellaneous set needs:

The Bauer Dealing Aces insert finished off my insert set quest from last year's Gypsy Queen release.  I didn't collect the base set but decided to go after several of the insert sets.  The Cabrera finished off the Super Veterans insert set, I with they would have continued this set in Series 2 and Update.  The Between Innings inserts from Opening Day are tough to come by - I think they are 1/box - and I picked up one on the cheap.  the Burkett gets me within 1 card of completing the 2012 Panini Cooperstown set, the last 20 cards are colorized and very short printed.  I still need Jim Bottomley and cannot even find one for sale.  The Buck Leonard insert finished off all the insert sets I am going after for 2012 Cooperstown. I am very disappointed the decided to skip this release in 2014, it has been one of my favorite sets of the past 2 years.  The Sale mini is one of 2 I needed for the Series 2 set (need Jeter again) and if the picture looks familiar to you, just scroll back up to the top (naughty Topps!).

I didn't do as much set damage as normal but am happy to have crossed these off the old want list.  Stay tuned for some Giants over  the next couple posts. 

McCovey Monday #64 - COMC Black Friday Purchase #1 - McCovey Prizms

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1200 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.

It has been a couple weeks since I posted.  Haven't had a lot of free time between prepping for Thanksgiving, having the family over and prepping for a week of vacation. I figured I would have a lot of time during my week off but that didn't materialize.  What free time I had I tried to get organized for some Black Friday purchases and believe it or not my Black Friday purchase from COMC came today in the mail - very fast service!

I decided to break my purchases into a few posts and since it is Monday I will start with a group of 2013 Panini Prizm parallels of my favorite player.  Check these out:

These are the Red, Green, Blue Pulsar and Orange Die-Cut (38/60) and added to my base and Prizm parallel give me 6/10 towards the rainbow.  I still need to Blue, Finite (1/1), Gold (/10), and Red Pulsar.  Realistically the Finite and Gold won't happen but if you run across either of the other 2 keep me in mind.  I got these 4 for a grand total of $12.99 which I think is pretty good for 4 somewhat hard to find parallels.

Over the next few days I will try and share my other COMC Black Friday purchases.  You will see some more Giants, some set needs a couple hits and even some football SPs.