McCovey Monday #100 - 2005 Prime Cuts MLB Timeline Jersey Number 16/25

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

During my most recent COMC order I was lucky enough to secure some new cards for my McCovey collection from 2005 at reasonable prices.  2005 was a peak year in the production of McCovey with over 800 different cards so I have quite a few gaps in my collection but most of the holes I need to fill aren't cheap to find.

I thought I would share this pick up with you today out of 2005 Prime Cuts:

I really enjoy this card, there are several cool features.  The picture of Willie Mac isn't huge but it is placed up the corner like a postage stamp.  The timeline theme results in his HOF election year of 1986 showing up at the bottom - I like cards that celebrate Hall of Fame elections.  The best part of this card is the double jersey swatch in the shape of his number 44 jersey number.

Here is the back of the card that "guarantees" that is comes from a game-worn item.  I also figured I could show off the serial numbering of 16/25, a fairly hard to come by card 14 years after the release.

NBCD Giants Team Set

I was doing some sort of eBay search a little while back and ran across a couple of listings for some cards I wasn't aware of.  Apparently there were some stadium giveaways on National Baseball Card Day and the Giants ended up getting a 10-card team set.  I had two different listings on my watch list but the cost was a little more than I was willing to jump at.  Luckily the seller sent me an offer and it was within the range I was considering so I jumped.

Here is the Giants set:

Pretty solid selection of Giants here.  Buster came back after a pretty difficult injury and while he didn't hit up to his past levels, his defense was solid and he is the team captain.  Longo's 2nd year with the team was much better than the first - we have him for 3 more years at a high contract value so I hope we get some production.  Panik was released and picked up by his hometown Mets.  Pillar had the best offensive season of any Giant but there is some talk that his low on base percentage might not make him a fit on the team - I think we need to keep him.  Samardzija had a very solid year and I am excited to see him continue that success in 2020.

The Brandon's both make the team set, while I appreciate all their accomplishments I think I am ready for both to go.  Crawford's offense is really bad, he has lost any speed he used to have and his defensive has regressed to average at best.  Belt seems to prefer walking over trying to drive the ball and just doesn't produce at the level of an MLB corner infielder.  Will Smith had a great year as the Giants closer but will be a free agent at the end of the year.  Melancon had a decent start to the year with the Giants, good enough for the Giants to offload his contract before the trade deadline.  My biggest surprise is the absence of Madison Bumgarner - maybe it was in anticipation of the trade that didn't happen.

I decided to share a card back as well, the numbering is SFG-# and the team logo appears in the upper right corner.  Nice solid back with the career stats.

Did anyone else know about these and/or pick their team set up?

McCovey Monday #99 - 2019 Hits Cards Allstars HOF Jumbo Memorabilia 8/10

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Today's card is from Hits Memorabilia and it is a jumbo relic card of Willie McCovey.  I have seen quite a few McCovey cards from this set but this is the first one I actually picked up.  I know this is an unlicensed product but really didn't know too much about the company.  They share their web address on the back of the card so I decided to take a look.

The front page of the site shares a quote from the founder:

Our goal at Hits Memorabilia is to bring affordable, authentic, highly collectible products to sports and entertainment collectors. Products we create include various sized memorabilia displays, and trading cards. With a concentration on prime memorabilia and authenticity innovation, we have steadily been growing and improving since 2010. Thank you for visiting our site- Gary O'Brien Jr, Founder

One cool thing I noticed is that they keep a photographic database of every card they produce in order to combat any potential tampering with their cards to put in higher end patches.  Pretty solid concept in my book as many of their cards have pretty cool patches.

My card however just has a nice large white swatch of allegedly game worn material.  The web site shows a pair of McCovey pants from 1972 and even display the label in the pants with his name on them.   Here is a scan of the front and back of the card I picked up:

 This also has a nice low serial number of 8/10.  I am glad to have this in my collection but won't be paying a premium like I would for a card from a more mainstream product right now.  Does anyone out there have any Hits cards?  Would you pick them up if they were from your team/player?

The Joy of Two Completed Insert Sets - 2019 Topps Series 1 Greatness Returns and Topps Now Preview

I have more 2019 Topps Series 1 insert sets to share, I am going for two again in this post.  First up is the Greatness Returns 25 card insert set and the Topps Now Preview 10 card insert set.

The Greatness Returns set features a pair of players on the front that are connected in some way.  Many are from the same team but different eras while a few are connected by similarity in their game.  The Topps Now Preview insert set consists of 10 cards and is pretty much a waste in my opinion.  They are ad cards for the Topps Now online card offerings that are put out daily by Topps during the season.  If I hadn't pulled half the cards and got the rest for under a quarter each, I probably wouldn't have put together the set.

Once again I will share the fronts of all 25 Greatness Returns cards and the back of card #1 in the set then let the scans do the talking:

Same with the Topps Now set, all the fronts and the back of #1.

I enjoy the concept of the Greatness Returns set and think Topps did a decent job of executing, I think my views on the Topps Now set were clear above.

These are the last 2 insert sets I put together in 2019 Topps Series 1.  If you are interested in a look back at other sets I have shared from 2019 Topps Series 1 you can link here:

150 Years of Professional Baseball
1984 Topps
Cactus League Legends and Grapefruit League Greats 
Evolution and Revolution of the Game
Iconic Reprints

Finally Some 1972 Topps Progress

I took more than a year off on working on my 1972 Topps set.  It is the only set I need to complete my lifetime run of Topps flagship.  The high number cards are hard to track down and even harder to get at a reasonable price.  Whenever I pop into a card store, usually when I am traveling for work I get a chuckle from the owner when I ask if they have any.

Just a couple months back I decided to bit the bullet and reignite my set quest.  I started by putting the cards I did have into binder pages in hopes it would help inspire me and it worked.  My buddy at work, when we face a big challenge, always states that the way to eat an elephant is one bit at a time.  I decided to try and pick up 3 cards a month towards the set build and have pretty much stayed on track.  I have picked up some on eBay and I also search COMC from time to time and I decided to share the dozen that arrived in my recent COMC shipment.

These first two cards are of Hall of Famers and are not high numbers.  I only needed a few non-high numbers when I stopped my pursuit and with these additions, I am down to needing 5 non-high numbers including some heavy hitters like Nolan Ryan, Pete Rose and Hank Aaron IA.

Here are the first 5 high numbers.  I read a great book about the A's of the 70s and wasn't really aware of how good Ken Holtzman was for the A's.  I remember him late in his career with the Cubs.  Funny how a book read connects me to certain players.  This is my second copy of the Alan Gallagher card, I have one in my Giants binder.   I recently read an article about Jose LaBoy.  I get a weekly email from the Baseball Hall of Fame that usually has an article that shows a baseball card and gives some info on a player.  LaBoy's 1970 Topps card was the featured card here.  If you don't subscribe to the newsletter, I would highly recommend it.

And here are the last 5 cards.  A nice card of HOFer Walter Alston and it looks like a candid shot as he manages a game.  The Simpson card looks like a pre-game photo before fans were let in and the Doyle and Steward appear to be Spring Training shots.

This addition of a dozen cards leaves me with a want list of 72.  72 bits of the elephant left.

New HOF Auto Added to the Collection

I haven't spent too much time trying to track down new HOF autos for my collection but while messing around on COMC a little while back I ran across a good deal on an auto to add to my Hall of Fame Baseball collection.

This is a cut auto of HOFer Billy Herman from the 2018 Leaf History of Baseball release.  Herman started his career with the Cubs in 1931 and this cut auto seems to be off a photo he signed in a Cubbies uniform.  In 1941 he was traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers and a bit for the Boston Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates.  Herman was a 10X All-Star and ended his career with a .304 batting average and 2345 hits. He was known for his defense at second base and held a number of defensive records when he retired in 1947.

Herman was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1975.  His stats don't measure up greatly to other HOF second basemen however 2 of his top 3 similar batters on Baseball Reference are fellow HOFers (Joe Sewell and Red Schoendienst).

This was a nice economical addition to my collection and brings my total up to 106 different players.