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.