Introducing a New Player Collection - Chili Davis

I recently decided to add a new player to my list of collection.  I had been contemplating adding Chili Davis to the list of players I collect for the last couple years but the only step I had taken was to purchase a Topps Archives autograph of his.  Chili is the first Giants prospect I remember being hyped when I was a kid.  He debuted briefly in 1981 and stayed with the Giants until 1987.  He went on to play for a total of 19 seasons and played with the Angels, Twins, Royals and Yankees after leaving the Giants.

Davis never reached 5-tool superstar status as hyped coming up through the Giants farm system but had a very solid career reaching 350 Home Runs, 1372 RBI, 142 SB and was a 3 time All Star.  He seemed to lose a little speed and gain some power after leaving the Giants.  I remember him as being a pretty good fielder on the Giants but advanced metrics make that memory a fallacy which was probably why he spent about half of his career games after leaving the Giants as a DH.

A couple months back I was able to pick up a lot of 44 different Chili cards for just a couple bucks so the player collection was on.  I made a checklist, dug through my Giants dups and made the player collection commitment.  

The main reasons I decided to collect Chili's cards were due to my admiration of him as a player and his card checklist.  The number of cards he has isn't overwhelming, just over 600, and he has cards throughout the 90s which allows me to chase some non-Giants in an era where I didn't collect much.  Because of his relatively small checklist, I will be chasing all of his cards - not just focusing on the base cards as I will with many of my collections in 2015.  I have added my want list to my blog.

I made a fairly large purchase on Sportlots a couple weeks back that focused mainly on my player collections.  I shared some of the Chris Webber cards I picked up in post a little while back.  Chili's card total in that purchase was second to Webber with 51 different cards.  I figured I would scan and show all 51 for your viewing pleasure.

The Topps card is a Tiffany variety and the 1988 Fleer Giants card is the Glossy parallel.  It may not be visible in the scan but I was bummed with the Fleer card as it is heavily creased and damaged.

I really like the Denny's hologram card and can't believe Topps made that micro set so small.  The Leaf Limited is a pretty sharp card and the Stadium Club is the Rainbow parallel.

 These all come from his second stretch with the Angels.  I like the base path action of the Upper Deck Electric Diamond and the Metal base cards are some of my favorites.

I think Chili is looking pretty cool with his shades in the Sportflix card.  Collector's Choice doesn't disappoint with a solid autograph card.  I always thought of Davis as a fan friendly player and that card is a little proof.

Chili had filled out a little by the end of his career as evidenced by some of those Yankee cards.  My favorites on this page are the trio along the bottom from Leaf.  There are a few more parallels that I would like to track down for the complete collection.

These final 6 finish off the 51 card purchase and added some meat to my player collection.  At the time of writing this, these cards brought me up to 239/604 total Chili Davis cards between my existing cards, the 44 card initial purchase and a few I have picked up over the past couple months.

If you have any of the cards off my want list, especially some of the rarer cards, please drop me a note and lets work out a deal.