7 Day Trading Card Challenge #1

Tim over at Cardpocalypse has laid down a 7 Day Trading Card Challenge and while I certainly won't cover it over 7 consecutive days, I think I am going to give it a go and hopefully get through all the steps.

Here are the 7 different challenges:

 

Today I have been challenged to share my favorite card acquired during the quarantine.

When I saw this topic, the first card that came to mind was this:

This is my first Topps Project 2020 art card.  When I saw the first few cards come out I wasn't sure they were going to be my cup of tea.  I wouldn't call myself an art connoisseur and the first one I saw that possibly would fit into my collection was an artistic rendering of a 1952 Willie Mays.  The card didn't excite or inspire me.  A few days later I saw this Rickey Henderson rookie rendition come up on Topps.com and instantly liked it.  I am a Rickey collector and think his rookie card is one of the best in the history of the hobby and this one was close enough to the original (not all of these are) for me but different enough where I wanted a copy. 

However with all the craziness about these Project 2020 cards and the crazy prices they are going for won't allow me in good conscious to pick a card from this set as my favorite.  If you aren't familiar, this card that I got for under $20 delivered when it was released, is now for sale of $300+.  I also picked up the second one when it was released but I am done with these.

Let's look at my real favorite card pickup during quarantine:

This is a 1972 Topps Joe Morgan high number and it finished off my 1972 Topps set and therefore finished off my lifetime Topps run.  It was actually one of a lot of cards I got to finish off my set but this was the last card in the package and will ever be remembered as the card that finished my set.

I am still on cloud nine about finishing the set and suspect it will be my favorite hobby accomplishment of the year.

Time to dig into the few 2020 cards I have so far to find a card for Challenge #2.

Baseball Book Review - From Ghetto to Glory by Bob Gibson

I set a goal this year to read 52 books, one per week.  I have done this in past years with some success and some failure.  I noticed the last couple years I hadn't read too many books despite enjoying reading a lot.  To me it is a great way to take my mind off everything else that is going on in my life and around me and just immerse myself in a story.

I read all kinds of books.  I believe this is my 15th book review on the blog so obviously sports books are in the rotation.  I actually have a pretty nice sports book collection, maybe I will share it some day with a video or some photos.  I also like non-fiction books, with my favorites being biographies/autobiographies and historical fiction.  I have read quite a few presidential bios.  I also read quite a bit of fiction with Stephen King, John Grisham, Tom Clancy and Jonathan Kellerman being among my favorites.

This week I finished up my 14th book of the year - From Ghetto to Glory, The Story of Bob Gibson by Bob Gibson and Phil Pepe.  Since we are 21 weeks into the year my goal is probably not going to happen.  You would think the pandemic would have helped out but it actually cut into my reading quite a bit.  All work travel was cancelled and I typically read at airports, on airplanes and in hotel rooms.  My TV rarely gets turned on in a hotel, it is either a book or Netflix on the iPad.

I picked up From Ghetto to Glory at a garage sale last year.  While Royals fans are definitely the majority here in the KC area, the Cards have quite a few fans just playing across the state of Missouri from KC.  I didn't own a book on Gibson nor had a read one so when I saw it for $1 it was a pretty easy decision to pick it up.  I am glad I did, it was a really good read.

This book was written right after the Cardinals won the 1967 World Series which was also right before Bob Gibson's dominant 1968 season - some argue the best season ever.  A quick Amazon search shows he also wrote an autobiography in 1994 which obviously would cover all of his career and more of his life but I am very happy to have read this book.

Gibson shares some first hand accounts of what it was like to grow up in the era that he did as an African-American, sharing stories of hardships in his life.  I have heard accounts talking about his level of bitterness and some reviews show that may have come through in his more recent biography. I found his stories in From Ghetto to Glory informative, lacking anger and sharing some interesting context about how society existed in this time prior to my birth.  I learned and better understand what our country and baseball was like in the 1960s.

There is great baseball content in here as well.  He talks in detail about how he approached pitching and went through a pretty long list of NL hitters and shared how he approached them. It is cool to think that he had some much talent and confidence that he didn't care to outline his game plan in writing in the middle of his career.

The writing style is easy to read and at 200 pages it isn't a long one but it was very enjoyable.  Something else I really liked about this book were the photographs that were inserted throughout the book.  They are all in black and white and just really cool pictures.  I will share a few - my pictures aren't the best from my phone but you should still be able to see how nice they are.

Showing off how he grips different pitches

Celebrating a World Series Title

Facing Off Against Future Teammate Roger Maris in the World Series

I would strongly recommend this book if you can get your hands on a copy.  It is a pretty quick read, very entertaining and educational and the pictures are the icing on the cake. 

A Sign of Things to Come?

One of my annual traditions is buying a hobby box of Topps Opening Day, cracking it open and building the base and insert sets.  The box is cheap and I usually pull a full base set out of a box.  From there building the insert sets is generally pretty affordable, most of the cards can be picked up for 18 cents on Sportlots.  I sell on Sportlots and typically flip the money I make in sales on cards to add to my collection, an odd but effective way of trading.

This year with the lock down my LCS was closed when Opening Day was released.  They eventually started doing curbside pickups but I didn't think a box of Opening Day was worth the trip.  The first weekend they opened back up I made a trip hoping to pick up a box and they were sold out.  The owner indicated they were very hot this year and he didn't think he could get anymore in at a reasonable price.  This is the lowest of the low end, what is going on?

Fast forward a week to this past weekend and I decided I wanted to pick up some retail Bowman.  I knew that hobby prices were going crazy so a blaster or two of Bowman would scratch that pack ripping itch.  I stopped by my local Targets and Walmarts throughout the Memorial Day weekend and there were none to be found.  A little reading on Facebook led me to discover that people were buying up and buying out all the Bowman retail and reselling them at crazy prices.

I am not sure where this hobby will settle but right now it is a little too crazy for me.  New products are selling at ridiculous prices.  Trout rookies are worth more than vintage Mantle and Ruth cards.  Topps Online cards sell for $20 then 2 weeks later are reselling for hundreds.  I am going to refocus my buying habits on some of the things that aren't spiking out of control and hope some of the other stuff stabilizes at a reasonable level.

I shared in an earlier post that I was going to forego building a Topps flagship set this year but realized that my crazy retail purchasing got me to within 70 cards of the Series 1 set and that I had all the main rookies.  I made a post on Facebook to see if I could pick them up from someone and a guy offered me all 70 for the low low price of $40 delivered.  A quick look on eBay showed me I could get the entire set for about $25 delivered.  I had to pass.  (BTW, if you have Series 1 laying around check out my want list and let's make a trade). 

Let's circle back to the start of this post with 2020 Topps Opening Day.  Apparently there must be some chase cards that people are doing after because after my failed attempt at a hobby box I found a full set including the 5 insert sets for $34 delivered - about the price of a box.  It wasn't as fun as ripping packs and seeking out inserts through purchases and trades but it did fill a collection want for me and saved me a few bucks.

Here is an overview of all the cards I picked up in my purchase:

I decided not to share much of this set since it came out quite a ways back but I had to showcase the first 5 cards in the Spring Has Sprung insert set - the photos are awesome and ones I don't ever recall seeing.

I really hope this is a temporary shift in the hobby but I have a sneaking suspicion that
we will see some lasting changes.  Any thoughts on the state of the hobby?

Topps Giant Vintage Pickups

I thought I was in my "new normal" but over the last couple weeks I have been in a little funk. 

My job has been very busy, in addition to my normal work (now being done virtually) I am also on my company's task force to help set up new guidelines on when and how we will emerge from this pandemic and start repopulating our physical offices.   I am grateful to be working but this task force work is requiring me to work until 6 or 7 PM a couple nights a week (the joy of working in the Midwest for a West Coast based company!).

It isn't unusual for me to work long hours, I am actually probably working a bit less when you take into account that I don't have to travel and be away from home.  The challenge has been the fact that I work all day in my basement room, the same room that I use for my card collecting and blogging.  Initially I enjoyed being surrounded in my collection all day but lately I don't want anything to do with my card room after work hours, hence little time with my hobby and no blogging.

I decided to take last Friday off to give myself a 4 day weekend to separate and recharge.  I also hoped to pound out a few blog posts and get back in the routine.  Good news, it was a great break from work and I feel recharged.  Bad news, stayed mostly away from the card room and no blog posts were crafted.

Today I got some cards in the mail (by the time you read this it will have been yesterday) and I immediately wanted to share them in a blog post.  Don't know why, it is nothing epic or earth-shattering.  I was just excited to share them.  Hopefully this starts a trend, we'll see.

I was checking out a couple of card collecting groups on Facebook and saw someone with a big stack of 1964 Topps Giant cards.  This is an insert set I recently started collecting by picking up a big lot from a different guy on Facebook.   I shot the guy a PM with my want list and he responded back quickly that I was down the line and he was going in the order that people contacted him.  I figured I was too late and forget about it.

A day or two later he hit me back up with a PM and a picture of 14 cards that I needed for my set.  I told him I was interested and he him me back with an offer of $60 delivered and I didn't even counter.  If you aren't familiar with the set, it is 60 cards in length.  The cards are pretty affordable with a couple exceptions.  There are 7 short prints and 2 of them are stars in Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays.  There are also Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron in the set.  Most of the other stars aren't too bad to pick up so my love of insert sets, vintage and affordability collided and this is now a set I am going after.

With these 14 cards that you see below, and 3 cards on their way from COMC, my want list is down to 12 cards including all 5 of the expensive cards I called out above.  I am sure I will slowly pick those off to complete the set and I already have these oversized cards sitting in a binder in 4-pocket pages waiting to be finished off. 

Here are the cards I just picked up:

A Pair of HOF Pitchers

A Pair of HOF Braves

Hoot and Killer

Cha-Cha and Yaz to finish off a HOF run

A Pair of Great and Underrated Hitters

The Friend is One of Seven SPs

Finishing it Off with 2 More SPs

I am very happy with these pick ups and happy to share them with you. Hope to be back with some more cards to share soon.

An Epic Milestone

My collecting roots were founded in set collecting and even as I have expanded into player collections and team collections the mentality of a set collector followed.  I look to finish up team sets of different products and all the cards from particular sets for some of the players.  If I had to give a generalized summary of my collecting approach it would be "I collect card sets".

One of the goals I made quite a number of years ago was to collect all the Topps sets in my lifetime.  I started collecting in 1979 and had the sets from that point forward.  I had also completed the 1978 set when I was younger after buying a vending box of 500 cards for $40 to start it off.  My task was to complete the sets from 1971-1977 to finish my lifetime Topps run.

I bought the 1974 set in its entirety and got an almost full set of 1977.  I bought a big lot of 1976 and built the rest.  I had picked up a bunch of the star cards from 1975 as it was one of my favorite sets so it didn't take me too long to piece that one together.  When I was building the 1973 set my LCS broke up a nice set of 1970 Topps and offered me a great deal to pick up a ton of the high number and was nice enough to allow me to make payments over a few months to stay within my collecting budget.  While the 1970 set was prior to my birth, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pick up the cards I did at the  price.

After finishing the 1973 set, I just needed 1971 and 1972 sets to finish my quest.  The 71 set didn't take all that long, especially since I wasn't too worried about the black edges and corners being pristine.  Some of the high numbers were a bit difficult and pricey but overall not too bad.

Then came the 1972 set.  If you aren't familiar, it is a beast.  There are 787 cards that were released in 6 different series.  The 5th series is somewhat tough but the last 131 cards form the last series and they are rare and pretty expensive.  While I have a pretty solid budget each month to spend on cards I do feel I am very cheap and seek out low prices on cards. 

With the 72 high numbers there are rarely low prices and at one point I actually gave up trying to complete the set.  For a couple years I set goals to knock of large portions of the set and I got down to only needing cards from the last series.  I wasn't willing to spend the time to seek out low priced cards and wasn't willing to spend the budget to pay higher prices so I threw my hands up and ended the quest.

I so enjoy set building and was so disenfranchised by the 1972 set that I built the entire 1969 Topps set and started the 1957 Topps set instead of going after those dreaded high numbers.

After a pretty long gap one day I just decided to put on my big boy pants and focus on completing the set.  I have slowly been picking up cards, some on COMC, some on eBay, a few at my LCS and a few at card shops when I traveled for work.  I started spending more time on Facebook and found some there as well.

Recently I received this last batch of cards and I can now say that I have completed the set!

Someone saw me respond to a Facebook post and sent me a message saying he thought he could finish off my set for me.  We worked out a price and he realized that one of the cards he had pulled had some hidden damage.  He was nice enough to seek out another copy and send me the cards.  It made it take a while longer but what would this set quest be without another twist.

I thought about holding off on posting this for a while because I technically don't possess all the cards.  I have 14 cards sitting in my COMC account.  Right as the pandemic was heating up I requested shipment of my cards but they have really been delayed on getting orders out.  COMC has been reliable for me and I decided to call this one complete.  I am so excited to have this full set!!!

So what is next for this set builder?  I am still working on 1957 Topps and have decided to go after the 1968 set.  I had quite a few 68s and picked up a couple lots so as of right now I only need 221 of the 598 cards in the set.  It doesn't have the same huge issues with high numbers so I hope to complete it sometime next year.  I don't know if I have it in me to go after the 1967 set with the high number issues there so we will have to see what is in store.

For now I will just celebrate my Lifetime Run of Topps Cards!

1958 Topps 49er Team Set

One of my plans when I decided to start collecting vintage 49ers was to chart and document my progress in this blog by sharing each team set as it was completed.  When I was on my blogging hiatus I made some pretty good progress and didn't get a chance to showcase some of the team sets I completed.  Slowly but surly I am hoping to catch up and share my team sets.

Today I decided to share the oldest set I have completed to date, 1958 Topps.  This is a set that is similar in design to the 1959 Topps baseball set with the player picture featured in an oval surrounded by a colorful border.  I have completed both the 1958 football and 1959 football sets but build these team sets separate from my complete sets.

The Niners set includes a team card and 10 player cards.  Three of the player cards feature rookies, R.C. Owens, Marv Matuzsak and Matt Hazeltine.  Of those players I would rate Owens as the top player, he was a halfback which was a receiver position back then.  He earned the nickname Alley Oop and was a top 10 receiver in 2 of his 7 seasons.

Here is a look at the 49er team set:

The 49ers had some star power on this team with a few HOFers: Tittle, Nomellini, Perry, and McElhenny.  They finished the 1957 season at 8-4 and made the playoffs and followed that up in 1958 with a 6-6 record in 1958.

You may wonder what the "S" and "R" are stamped on the back of some of those cards.  Those are cards that came from the collection my dad gave me from his youth.  My dad and uncle share the same first letter of their first name and my dad was called Smitty so I am guessing the "R" was for my uncle's cards and the "S" for my dad - neither of them remember.  I am assuming there was a lack of trust between them.  Unfortunately my set build has quite a few cards with these stamps including the Jim Brown RC card - oh well not planning on selling the set anyway.

I have a couple 60s sets to still share and a bunch of 70s as well.  I am within striking distance of a few more 50s sets needing 4 cards for the 55 Bowman team set, 2 for 56 Topps, 4 for 57 Topps and 4 for 59 Topps.

Complete Set Showcase - 1987 Conlon Set - Part 3 of 3

Time to finish this set off.  This is part 3 of a 3 part series going through this very cool 1987 Conlon set.  As a reminder, here is a brief write-up about the set from beckett.com.  The second series of 60 Charles Martin Conlon standard-size sepia toned photo cards was produced by World Wide Sports in conjunction with The Sporting News. Reportedly 12,000 sets were produced. The photos were selected and background information written by Paul MacFarlane of The Sporting News.

If you want to look back at the first part of the set, you can check it out here.

The second part can be found here.

I decided to break this into 3 different posts and include 4 cards in each scan.  To add a little more that just show the cards, I thought I would share one fact I found interesting from reading the backs.  I hope you enjoy.

Favorite Fact -The Koenig card back tells an alternate explanation for Babe's called shot, I hadn't heard this version of the story.

Favorite Fact -Back in the early 1900s players had thin skin and did something about it.  I can't believe a guy would go into the opposing team's dugout, mid-game and punch someone out.  Funny that it was the wrong guy.

Favorite Fact -A dude named Hub owned Babe Ruth.  30 times up with 15 strikeouts - I wouldn't have guessed someone did so well against the Babe.

Favorite Fact -The Ernie shore no-hitter/perfect game in relief of Babe Ruth is a great story but one I had heard before.  I like the fact that Amos Rusie was able to transition from the 50' mound to the 60'6" distance and still be a strong pitcher.

Favorite Fact -I had no idea the great George Sisler came up as a pitcher and certainly didn't know he outdueled the great Walter Johnson.  I looked up his pitching record and he pitched in 15 games during his first season and a total of 24 games throughout his career.


There you have it, the entire 60 card set.  When I picked these cards up it was definitely for the awesome Conlon photography on the front.  In the end, I got a lot more enjoyment from the backs.  The stories, the nicknames and most important (and impressive) the writing made these card backs a joy.  Hope you enjoyed a look through the set.

Just for the "F" of It #19 - 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Philip Hughes Auto 0344/1485

Back when I lived in Southern California, I frequently attended an LCS called MVP Sportscards in Laguna Hills.  The store is still there and on the infrequent times I make it to Orange County I always stop in. It is run by a great husband and wife team and they had the perfect variety of cards for this collector.  They had boxes of all the new stuff, singles of new and vintage cards and stocked boxes of oddball cards from the late 90s and early 00s. 

I used to go in weekly and typically would buy a box of cards and perhaps some singles.  When there wasn't anything new to get, I would dabble in some of the cards that were a few years old.  I had lots of fun opening up cards a few years old and one of those boxes was a box of 2004 Donruss Elite Edition.  As I recall, each box had multiple hits and today's Just for the "F" of it card is one of the hits from that box.

The owner was a long time resident of the area and was instantly excited when I pulled this card:

Philip Hughes was a draftee of the Yankees and wasn't real well know, at least to me.  But the owner knew him because he grew up locally and was a pretty highly regarded prospect.  You can see from the write up on this back of his card that he went to high school in Santa Ana which is in north Orange County.

Because he was a local guy, I decided this card would be a keeper.  Hughes ended up having a decent career playing 12 seasons with the Yankees, Twins and Padres.  One year with the Twins he won 16 games and earned some Cy Young Award votes.  He retired after the 2018 season.

Recently I discovered that Phil is a fellow card collector which adds to my desire to keep this card in my collection.  He has a popular Youtube channel called Phil's Pulls that I have been watching for a few weeks.    He has over 37k subscribers and primarily breaks newer stuff.  Recently he started breaking some 90s stuff which has been fun to watch.

I have always appreciated the relationship I built with MVP Sportscards and the help they gave me with my collection.  I am also happy that they were in tune with the local high school baseball scene and demonstrated the enthusiasm over a Yankee draftee that results in me keeping this card, just of the fun of it.

A 2020 Rainbow

When I decided to pare back on my 2020 set collections I decided to dive a little into my Giants collection.  I want to try to pick up at least one of each parallel throughout the year and when 2020 Donruss came out I decided to try to go after a rainbow of one player.  I looked through the checklist and decided Maricio Dubon would be the guy.  He was acquired by the Giants midyear last year in a trade for Drew Pomeranz and plays 2B and SS.  This spring the Giants were trying him out in CF and were projecting him to be an almost every day player at a variety of positions.  The team brass and many of the guys that cover the Giants are very high on him and I was pretty excited to see how the season panned out.  Their excited translated to me and I hope I get to see him in action this year.

I am cheating a bit as I am one parallel short of completing a full rainbow plus I haven't secured a 1/1 press plate yet.  I have yet to see a Press Proof /5 come up for sale for Dubon and I decided not to wait on one to show these off.

The first scan shows off the base card, an Artist's Proof  04/10, a Baby Shark and a Career Stat Line 231/434.  This picture works out well without the licensing, nice selection.  The silly parallels like a Baby Shark actually made me want to pursue this rainbow.

These are Holo Blue, Holo Orange, Holo Purple and Holo Red - a true rainbow of colors.

This quad has an Independence Day, Look At This 23/25, Holo Pink and On Fire 28/75.

Finally One Hundred 085/100, Presidential Collection 30/50, Season Stat Line 083/106 and Yellow.  I had to overpay for the last one which was the Presidential Collection.  I missed the first one that popped up and ended up paying more than the price of a blast for this one.  The Yellow one was tough to track down I think they are Walgreen's exclusives.

I am thinking of going after a Topps Chrome rainbow this year as well, just need to figure out which player.

McCovey Monday - 1964 Topps Venezuelan

Starting in 1959 Topps began printing cards for the Venezuelan market.  They were typically the same design on the front with some design changes on the back that varied by years.  Usually the set was smaller, for example the 59 set was just the first 196 cards of the set.

Although Willie McCovey first appeared in 1960 Topps, he wasn't in the Venezuelan parallel set until 1964.  He actually has 3 cards in the set, the HR Leaders, a Friendly Foes multiplayer card with Leon Wagner and his base card.  In 1964 they paralleled the first 370 cards.

I don't have the HR Leaders card in my collection but do have the other two.  Here is a look at the fronts, they look about the same as the regular Topps issue.

It is when you flip them over that you can see the difference.  1964 Topps is known for its nice orange backs while the Venezuelan parallel is black. 

I feel fortunate to have cards in this good condition.  Many of the copies of these cards that I have come across appear to have been glued into books and have paper loss and/or residue on the back.

Topps stopped with the Venezuelan parallels in 1968 and overall Willie Mac had 7 cards and I have 5 of them.  In addition to the missing 1964 HR Leaders card, I still need to track down a 1966 HR Leaders card.

A Blue Wave

One of the players I have been collecting the longest is Vida Blue.  If I recall correctly it all started with Rickey Henderson followed quickly by Willie McCovey.  Next I started adding Dave Winfield cards to my collection which was then followed by Jim Rice and Vida Blue.  Rice was abandoned a couple years later but my quest for Vida Blue cards has continued. 

Vida's rookie card was in the 1970 Topps set and he had player era cards through 1987.  I have most of those missing just a few postcards and rare oddball issues.  Blue played in the Senior League and had a few cards from there in the early 90s and also appeared in some of the oddball sets put out throughout the 90s.  Fleer and Topps included him in some of the sets celebrating Super Teams, Great of the Games and post season success in the early 2000s.  He was included in some of those annoying (to player collectors) sets that featured stamped and autographed buy-backs for both Donruss and Topps.  Again, I have most of these cards minus the 1/1s and ultra rare cards.


From 2006 to 2010 he only made 1 appearance in a major release in Topps Triple Treads, I have his base and all the parallels minus the Sapphire /25 and the Platinum 1/1 but have yet to pick up one of the relics he shared with Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers (this is something I should rectify).  He popped up in Limited in 2011, an unlicensed release where he had a numbered base card, jersey card and relic - all of which I was able to secure.

2012 and 2013 were great years for a Vida collector as he appeared in Topps Archives, Five Star, Triple Threads, Ginter, Gypsy Queen, Museum Collection, Tier One and Tribute.  There are some gaps in my collection here as many of the hits are low numbered but it was really nice to add to my Vida collection.  Since then he has only appeared in 2016 Prime Cuts and has completely disappeared from Topps releases.  Topps has seemed to focus mainly on Hall of Famers but I have been disappointed that he hasn't been included at all.

I have a daily eBay search of Vida cards that pops up in my email inbox daily looking to fill some of the gaps in my collection and I was pleasantly surprised to see this card pop up a couple weeks back:

Topps included Vida in a Throwback Thursday release this year.  There are weekly releases you can purchase on Topps.com that feature new cards on old designs, this one being the 1971 Topps basketball design.  I think this is a great looking card and I picked one up from a 3rd party seller on eBay.  It was the first new Topps card of Blue since 2013 and one of my first adds in a while.

What was really cool about this beyond having a new Vida card was that it started a minor Blue Wave of new cards I was able to add to my collection:

In addition to the new Topps card I have been able to add 3 new items to my Vida collection in the last week or two. 

 First up is this postcard.  This wasn't totally new to me as two of them have been listed on Ebay for quite some time.  I had them saved as a possible future purchase but the price magically got lowered right at the time the Blue Wave started.  These were put out in connect to Ted Williams, there are 2 versions of Vida but this is only one I have seen.  It happens to be autographed which is nice but wasn't necessary.  I recognize Vida's auto but just in case, a COA was included with the postcard:

Next up is the oddball card I have never seen and know nothing about:

It looks to be an oddball from 1999 put out by International Sports Marketing and licensed by the Major League Baseball Players Alumni but not MLB.  The front references the Campbell Soup Company and a Legands of Baseball Tour. This is part of a 13 card set, I would like to see a checklist of this set.  I am super happy to have this card in my collection - it is great to add new cards and even better when I didn't even know they existed.

Next up is an oddball item that looks to be perhaps a placemat:

As you can see from the first photo, these are fairly large in size.  It was put out by Home Federal Savings bank as a promo in the early 80s.  I hadn't heard of this item either so it was great to add it to my collection.  Luckily it came as a lot with several other Giants:

The Bob Knepper and Jack Clark are also from Home Federal Savings and as mentioned I didn't even know HFS had put out a set of these.

Now I do have a release from Eureka Federal Saving on my checklist and even have a copy of the Willie McCovey in my collection.  The EFS release came out in 1980 and I was able to pick up 4 of these in this lot:

I am aware of 8 of these in the EFS checklist and with the McCovey I now have 5 of the 8 only missing Al Holland, John "The Count" Montefusco and Johnnie LeMaster.  I would love finish off that team set and figure out how big the Home Federal Savings set is and how many are part of that.

After picking up perhaps 3-4 new Vida Blue cards in the last couple years, it was pretty awesome to bring 4 new items into the collection in the last couple weeks.