A Collection Goal Update at the Quarter Point of the Year

A couple days ago I thought it would be wise to check in on my 2018 Collecting goals and see what kind of progress has been made.  I haven't posted as much as I would like so I decided to make my progress check into a post.

As you may recall (or if not you can click on the link above) I decided to go micro and specific on my goals this year which is a reversal over the past couple.  I will copy my list from the post and share some updates in blue and pictures.

Set Building

• Complete 1969 Topps Set (currently need 8 - Bench, Kessinger, Cox, Reggie RC, Mantle, Santo, Fingers RC, Teddy Ballgame) - I have a COMC order coming in soon that should result in exciting news but I have some progress in my possession.

The left side of the Cubs Infield brings me down to 6 needs

An awesome 2nd year card with the Rookie Cup Bench brings me down to 5

• Start new vintage set - I have a couple of ideas in mind but haven't settled on a set quite yet.

• Collect Donruss, Topps Series 1 & 2, Topps Update, Opening Day and 2-3 other 2018 sets - Doing well here, bought a Master Set of Topps Series 1 and built a couple of the retail insert sets I liked.  Bought a box of Opening Day, completed the set with the box and the insert sets through Sportlots.  Bought a base set of Donruss along with the 70 (!) variations.  Decided against Heritage and Gypsy Queen although Gypsy Queen is still a consideration.

HOF Auto collection

• Get to 100 different players (currently at 94) - I posted the addition of Smoltz and LaRussa here, I posted autos of Hoffman and Vlad on my HOF Ballot post here, plus I added this great looking on card auto of Jeff Bagwell.  This brings me to 99, just need to track down 1 more to make my goal.

2014 Panini Prizm 54/75, despite the lack of logo, this is a great looking card in hand. I love the big on-card auto

Reading

• Finish and post on 6 sports books - I have 2 different baseball books right now that I am reading and a bunch ready to go.  Even though I am behind pace, I think I will get there.

• Catch up on Sports Illustrated and ESPN magazines - The stack keeps growing and I doubt this will be a made goal.

49ers Vintage collection (1950s-1970s)

• Get collection into a binder - All done, spent a little time in late February going through all my cards, sorting them by year and paging them up.  It has been fun flipping through a couple of times already. 

• Reach 200 different cards (currently at 152) - I currently sit at 182.  I have even gotten a few through trade.  I feel good about this goal, shouldn't be hard to hit.

USC Football

• Get collection organized - haven't spent any time organizing this part of my collection.

• Establish focus and add 200 new cards - I have yet to gain a focus.  I have added around 75 new cards with a few coming in trades, a couple of purchase and most from the large collection I bought and am working my way through.

Giants

• Add 20 NY Giants era vintage cards - I am already over half way to this goal but none of my pick-ups have been blogged about.  I have an amazing Return from the Purge that will be coming soon, a huge pickup to finish off a vintage team set and a multiple card purchase from an eBay seller.  I will share one card I picked up in a Sportlots auction.

 

An awesome 1952 Topps pick-up.  This is the black back version and one of the last players I need for my Giants team set that aren't in the dreaded high number series.

• Add 100 1970s-1990s cards - I have already far exceeded this goal. Most I won't blog about but I was helped by picking up a 28 card 1993 Topps Inaugural Giants team set, a 28 card 1983 Giants postcard set, a 30 card 1987 Topps Tiffany set, a 21 card 1980 SSPC HOF card Giants team set and 54 cards in a Beckett.com order.

• Reduce parallel want list to 150 cards (currently at 233) - I haven't added any 2018 cards to the list yet as I have picked up the wanted parallels.  I have only knocked about 10-15 cards from the list.  This goal will be a challenge, reasonably priced early 00s Topps Gold cards and some of the earlier years of Ginter minis are tough to come by.

Player Collections

• Willie McCovey - pick up 2 items off want list from playing career - nothing yet

• Rickey Henderson - pick up 5 items off want list from playing career, get checklist up to date - I have 2 in hand and believe my COMC incoming order will get me to this goal.  Still need to get the checklist up to date.

This 2005 Absolute card is the Spectrum version numbered 057/150, I also picked up a 1989 Topps Big

• Dave Winfield - reach 850 different cards (currently at 805), get checklist up to date - I have added 7 and here they are.  Still need to get the checklist up to date.

• Reggie Jackson - reach 700 different cards (currently at 626), get checklist up to date - I have added 10 to get to 636, here are 9 of them.

• Vida Blue - pick up 3 items off want list - any new Vida is getting credit here including the awesome custom from Baseball Card Breakdown.  I also picked up this cool patch from 1979.  That leaves me just 1 short and I have a couple awesome cards to share in a future post that will complete my goal.

Can't tell what team he should be on, right around the time he moved from the A's to the Giants.

• Ben Petrick- reach 230 different cards (currently at 221) - This is going to be a tough one to accomplish, most of the cards I need are pretty hard to find with lower print runs.  I have got 3 pretty awesome new cards.

You can see that the Maximum parallel is numbered 203/323, the Bowman Gold Refractor is 54/99 and the Pacific Extreme LTD is 42/45

• Chili Davis - reach 465 different cards (currently at 453) - no activity on the Chili front so far in 2018.

• Dave Parker - reach 160 different Pirates cards (currently at 140) - only 1 pick up so far but it is a pretty cool one.

I love me some Hostess cards!

• Fred Lynn - post about new player collection, reach 280 different cards (currently at 252) - I still haven't posted about this new player collection but I have been adding some cards.  My collection now sits at 270 cards.  I don't plan on showing off any cards until I get the first post out.

• Ronnie Lott - reach 900 different cards (currently at 868) - I am at 873 but should be able to move the needle much quicker with the 2018 football releases.  Here are 3 cards from 2017 Select, I would like to track down most of the rainbow at some point.

These are numbered 015/149, 04/75 and 12/25

• Roger Craig - reach 380 different cards (currently at 361) - I have only added 1 card, it is a great dual auto that added to two of these collections.  I will have it's own post coming up.

• Dwight Clark - reach 125 different cards (currently at 109) - I have added 5 to get to 114 and will show off 2 of them here.

This counts as 2 on my checklist as the card and coin are listed separately.  These came from a regional grocery store, Save Mart back in 1996

• Fred Dean - add 5 cards (currently at 25) - I shared 1 in my blog bat around post and also picked up this one.

• Harold Miner - add 2 new cards (currently at 252) - Even at 2 this was a stretch goal, not much of his I don't have.  I did track down one postcard sized new card of his and shared on the blog bat around post.

• Charles Barkley - reach 700 different cards (currently at 645) - I have added 7 cards, 2 in this trade, and these 5.

• Patrick Ewing - reach 550 different cards (currently at 505) - 3 new ones here.

For some reason that green border on the UD MVP card really stands out to me.  The Larger then Life insert is a nice shiny gold

• Chris Webber - reach 750 different cards (currently at 710) - 4 new CWebbs added to the collection.

The upper left card is from his college days and the first card on my checklist, it had eluded me for some time and I am super happy to finally own a copy

Reflecting back on my progress so far, I have to say I am pretty happy.  It seems the areas that have been most lacking are my USC football collection and my basketball player collections.  I am interested to see if my focuses shift in that direction.  I am not going to "force" myself to go after certain cards to make a goal, I use the goals as guidelines and go after what feels good.

Have you reflected on your 2018 goals?  If so, how are you doing?

2016 Black Friday COMC Order #9 - Player Collections Part II

I already shared some cards from my biggest player collections but I also picked up some cards for other player collections.  I have found a lot of satisfaction in expanding my collection to other players. It has allowed me to explore cards from different sets that may not have been a focus of mine.  I am currently considering adding a couple more players to the list but haven't taken the plunge yet.

The first card to share is this Retail LTD parallel of Ben Petrick from 2001 Pacific.  This card is serial numbered /85 and is one of 5 Petricks in the set, 1 base and 4 parallels.  I only have this one and the base card so I will be keeping my eyes peeled for the others.

This card really doesn't fit in as I don't have a player collection of Brad Miller.  I didn't want to give this card its own post so I decided this was my closest placement.  I do collect autos and jersey of Kings players from my favorite era with Miller being one of them. Unfortunately my tracking of these isn't good as I already had this card - oops.

I was able to find quite a few Chili Davis cards I needed in this order.  Some of my favorites are the Circa base card and its Rave parallel.  Chili is probably my newest Player Collection and it is coming along quite well.  My Checklist shows I have 425/604 cards for a 70.4% completion.  If I back out the 16 1/1s which I am sure I will never track down with how old his cards are it rises to over 72%.

My Dave Winfield collection would win the award for the most neglected major part of my collection.  I have 773 different cards in my collection but rarely seek out new ones.  In this order I did pick up 3 oddballs - all non-standard card sized and 2 featuring the same picture.  I foresee a Winfield spending spree at some point.

After Fred Dean got elected to the HOF I decided to pick up some of his cards.  These 2 filled some gaps and are both very nice action photos and coincidentally both are against the Cowboys.  The cards of Fred in my collection only total 24 with these additions, I will probably check here and there but I am pretty happy with where the collection stands.


The most pickups from this post are of Dave Parker.  As you may or may not remember, I am only going after Parker cards from his days in Pittsburgh.  Kind of a way to narrow the scope down and his days with the Pirates are what I most fondly remember.

This one scan has a whole lot of wonderful with a 75 mini, a couple OPC cards, an SSPC card with a great stadium background, a Kellogg's card and two MSA Discs with great back graphics.

Some more Parker love with some oddballs including stickers, stamps, credit cards, food cards, another disc and OPC!

These are a few other cards that filled some gaps in the Parker collection.  I wouldn't mind a comeback on the Active Leader cards from 1984, I remember pulling these from packs and studying the backs with the lengthy list of all the leaders.

The final scan in this post showcases 4 nice, inexpensive relics of Mr. Parker.  I think they all look great but the Bats to the Future has to be my favorite due to the picture of Dave in his batting helmet and jacket with the bat on his shoulders - great picture!

Catching Up With Ben Petrick

I am working hard to get all my cards filed away but there are quite a few I want to share prior to filing so you can expect a few Catching Up posts over the next couple weeks. 

I have shared quite a few of my Ben Petrick cards that I have acquired and I am pretty happy with my player collection progress.  My Petrick collection is in honor of my Grandma who battled the same disease, Parkinson's, that Petrick is currently fighting.  I am going to share a pretty cool group of cards I have tracked down via COMC and eBay over the last few weeks.

Here is a trio of different parallels of his 3-player Topps rookie card.  I have the Topps base and Chrome in my Giants collection due to the presence of Mirabelli but the refractor is currently only in my Petrick binder.  Sometimes I find myself having to decide where to place cards that fit in different parts of my collection and the order is usually Set, Player Collection then Team Collection.

This is a somewhat eclectic group of cards with only Petrick tying them together.  The SPx card on the top right is the Radiance parallel and is numbered 040/100.  The card looks pretty cool in hand but scans even better.  The Middle card is minor league release from 2004 and is the last card on my checklist besides a buyback card released in 2005.  I was happy to track it down.

These are all Bowman/Topps parallels.  The upper left card is a gold parallel numbered 30/99.  The upper right is the Topps Gold parallel numbered 1964/2002. The lower left card is a refractor the bottom right is the mini with a Carolina Brights back.  The mini completes the "rainbow" of 4 different backs that were made of Petrick back in 2002.

Here are some Fleer/Skybox releases.  It is impossible to tell in the scan but the Fleer Tradition card is the glossy parallel and is numbered 121/200.  The Fleer Focus is the green parallel and is numbered 143/300.  I already had the Ultra Gold Medallion but now added the base, I am still on the lookout for the Platinum /50.  The Skybox card is the Ruby parallel. there is a Ruby Extreme parallel /50 that I would still like to add.

Here are a trio of Pacific parallels.  The top left card is the Copper parallel numbered 90/99.  I still need quite a few parallels from that set including Emerald Green /99, Gold /199, Platinum Blue /75 and Premier Date /37.  I really like many of the Pacific designs and parallels but they are not easy to track down.  The Private Stock card is the Silver parallel and is numbered 132/199.  Finally a nice looking Prism Holographic Purple parallel numbered 54/99.  I am getting close to finishing off this rainbow of 15 cards needing just the Holographic Blue /80, the Premiere Date /61 and the Tinsel Silver /331.

I will finish off the post with a couple hits.  The Bowman's Best Locker Room Collection has a nice jersey swatch and pairs nicely with a Bat card of the same design I added a few months back.

I am pretty happy with these additions, most were somewhat rare and serial numbered.  My Petrick collection now stands at 201 different cards with a total of 307 appearing on my checklist for a nice 65.5% completion percentage.

COMC Purchase #2 - Player Collections

I previously shared the first half of my COMC purchase and this post focuses on my player collections. 

COMC has been a lot of help in filling out my newer player collections.  I look periodically with my focus being primarily on oddballs and parallels.  I found quite a bit of success with Ben Petrick:

I was able to snag 3 2000 Paramount parallels, the green, the Holographic Gold /199 and the Holographic Silver /99.  Petrick has 10 cards in his Paramount rainbow and I am down to needing 3, Holographic Green /99, Platinum Blue /67 and Premiere Date /50.  The Fleer Mystique card is the gold parallel, interestingly the base card is serial numbered but the parallel is not. This is only a 3 card rainbow with the 3rd card being the 1/1 Masterpiece which I doubt I will ever come across.  I was able to pick up 2 different Ultra Gold Medallion cards and I now have all 3 that feature Petrick.  Finally I picked up the Silver Sheen and the Rapture Gold parallels from 2000 Pacific Prism.  This rainbow is really big (15 cards) and I am down to needing 4, Holographic Blue /80, Holographic Purple /99, Premiere Date /61 and Tinsel Silver /331.  I really like the look of all the Prism parallels and look forward to finishing off this set.

I also scored all of these Petrick cards in this shipment.  The 1999 Bowman card is a gold parallel /99, the 2001 Fleer Platinum card is a parallel /201 and the 2003 Topps Total is the silver parallel.  The Fleer Showcase card is the base and is numbered /2000 and the 2002 Topps 206 mini is the Piedmont Black back parellel.

I have most of Petrick's base cards now so parallels are where most of my needs lie.  Per Beckett there are 307 Petrick cards out there and I am now at 180 for a 58.6% completion.

Next up are some Chili Davis pickups:

Chili is my newest collection and many of his cards I need are out there for the buying.  My focus has been getting some of the more odd cards on sites like COMC and picking up the base cards on Sportlots when I am buying some cards and have room in combined shipping. It seems to be working well as my collection continues to grow.  The Mother's Cookie card from 1983 is one of the older Chili cards, he has a minor league card from 1978 and 3 cards in 1982.  I am working to have copies of his Giants cards in both my Giants binders and my Chili binder.  As you can see, I also scored a Fleer Star Sticker,  a Kraft oddball with an airbrushed hat and two stickers from his Giants tenure.  The bottom middle sticker is actually an O-Pee-Chee sticker.  Chili has 2 of these Starting Lineup cards from 1988, one with the Giants and one with the Angels.  I still need the Giants version for my Chili collection. 

Across the top I picked up a Sportflix, the 1984 Nestle parallel and a Members Only Stadium Club card - the only way to tell is to look at the back, I probably should have scanned the back to show that off.  The bottom 2 cards are Fleer and Score Glossy parallels to finish up the Chili portion of the order.

This group of Chili cards brings my total to 289 different cards.  According to Beckett he has 604 different cards and with a percentage of 47.8% I am closing in on the half way mark - I just need 13 new cards.

I mentioned that most of my focus on COMC is on my new player collections but that doesn't mean I don't look for guys I have collected for a while.

I found this Silver National Treasures parallel /25 on COMC for a reasonable price and quickly jumped on it.

Overall I am pretty happy with my COMC haul.  I have gone through the money I previously added to my account so I think I will add a few dollars soon so I can browse COMC and pick up cards as I find them.  It takes some patience to wait to have them delivered (these cards were purchased over a 2.5 month period before I paid for shipping) but it is worthwhile to fill some collection gaps.

The Petrick Collection Continues to Grow

I recently posted about a few Ben Petrick pick ups for one of my newer player collections and shared my desire to surpass the 50% mark.  JediJeff from the blog 2 by 3 Heroes commented that he was 45 cards behind me and that he needed to get going.  Sorry to tell you Jeff but after a recent Beckett.com Marketplace shopping spree you are even farther behind.

If you don't know Petrick's story, this ESPN story can get you up to speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99cyiDGHHOo (thanks Josh!).  It is a very sad story and one I can somewhat relate to as my Grandma suffered and passed from Parkinson's as well.  With Petrick being so young, the story is even more sad.  My way of honoring him and my Grandma with my card collection is this collection.

Here are my recent pick ups:

This group is all minor league cards prior to Petrick rise to the Major leagues.  Even back in the late 1990s card companies were putting out silly parallels.  The Baseball America cards are only different based on the presence of the 4 diamonds and silver/gold foil in the bottom left hand corner of the cards.  The 99 Just card is a gold border parallel.  While I do consider these silly, they also offer up the chance to build a stronger and larger player collection. 

This group features cards from Bowman products.  The top left and right are Bowman Chrome International parallels, I have always been a fan of this parallel set.  The top middle card is a refractor.

 Here is a nice group of Pacific cards.  I don't believe I ever opened any Pacific cards during the time they were released so these are always new to me.  That top center Prism parallel is one of 14 different parallels of the base card.  I now have the base and 8 of those parallels, I think that would be a fun one to finish although some of the rarer versions can carry a premium price.  The tiny card is a Card Supial, I believe it was designed to fit in a pouch of a bigger card.  As far as I can tell, Petrick only has the small version.

The top left card is the Gold Back version, reminds of the red letter backs of 2007 Topps - not really a fan of this parallel approach but as a player collector I must go after all cards!  The top right card is the batting average parallel to the top middle base card and is numbered 075/238.  The Fleer Futures card is a Black Gold parallel and is numbered 465/499.  The Fleer Mystique is actually a base card but apparently they were all numbered, this one 0048/2000.  Fleer was a little serial numbered crazy back in the day.

I also picked up a few Upper Deck cards including the duo up top of a base Black Diamond card and its die cut partner.  All of these cards bring the shine but I think the HG Stars of the System at the bottom wins my award for the favorite in this group.

Finally the last group from Topps and a couple oddballs.  I recently learned from Lifetime Topps Project  that these two parallels (HTA & Limited) were two of only three parallel sets from the 2002 Topps release - I still need the gold border.  Can you imagine a world with only 3 parallels!?  I have always been intrigued by the Topps Stars cards, another product I have never cracked.  I like both of these cards with the bottom left card being a gold parallel to 034/499.  The MLB Showdown reminds me of how few Giants I have from this set in my collection. The Vanguard card looks very nice and is a high quality card.

This group of 37 cards puts me over the halfway mark with 165/308 or 53.6%.  I think it is time to set up an eBay search for some of the more rare cards and see if I can add some "quality" to my quantity although I must say that Ben Petrick's career seemed to parallel a few years with some really nice base cards.  Happy collecting!

Player Collection Catch Up - Ben Petrick

One of my goals in 2015 was to place a little more focus and pick up some cards to grow my player collections.  I have made varying degrees of progress but decided it was time to post updates for some of the players to gauge my progress.  In this post I will share some of my more recent Ben Petrick pickups. 

My recent base card pick ups happen to number 9 and fit perfectly on my scanner screen.  Petrick has a number of really nice looking cards.  My favorites here are the Fleer Focus in the middle and the 3 along the bottom.  The Topps Fusion was a really odd release.  I recall buying a few packs when it first came out and it was pretty confusing with all the different designs.

This is a nice looking die cut auto.  The use of the baseball makes for a great design.  As a matter of fact, 2014 National Treasures has some autos with a very similar design.  

This Topps Gallery card came to me for only a buck or so.  While I am a big fan of the Topps Gallery design, this card doesn't really differentiate itself from a design perspective from other autos.  I think I may have preferred a more artistic feel to the card.

The final card in this post is this nice looking Topps Chrome dual relic.  This is a cool concept for a relic design and could also work with a trio of outfielders or maybe a double play duo.  The pinstripes are a nice addition to this card.  my only beef is that the small lettering above the names indicate there is a piece of jersey and a piece of bat when this is obviously 2 jerseys.  Regardless, I really like this card.

I am thinking I am ready for another infusion into the Petrick collection in the near future.I currently have 128 of his 308 cards or 41.6%.  I would love to add another 26 cards to get to the 50% mark.

COMC Delivery

I recently posted about the final 2 Future Stars That Never Were cards I purchased from COMC to finish off my insert set.  As you probably know, COMC has moved to a flat rate $3 shipping charge so I always like to purchase and bundle a decent group of cards together to have delivered to keep the impact of the shipping at a minimum.  When filling out this order, I decided to focus on some of my player collections and figured I would show off the rest of the cards in one post.

First, here are the 3 Chili Davis cards I acquired:

I don't remember what I paid but the Lead Buy Back /20 was a score that made me quite happy.  It is my first Leaf Buy Back, I have yet to track down a Giant from the set.  The middle cards is an SP card from 2012 Topps Archives.  I bought an auto of this card prior to even deciding to start a Chili player collection and I have a copy of this in my set.  This card only set me back 65 cents.  Usually when looking at COMC for cards for my player collections I look for hits, serial numbered cards, short prints, inserts and parallels.  The final Davis card fits into the final category and I think the photo fits nicely with the die cut design.

Next up are the Harold Miner cards I picked up:

The Z-Force is from the 2012-13 Fleer Retro set and is the Super Rave parallel numbered 27/50 - a great find.  The two Ultra cards come from the same set, the colored version being the base insert and the black and white one is the Platinum Medallion numbered 092/100.  The middle card, also from that set is the Flair Legacy Row 0 insert numbered 091/100.  The lower right card is the final Fleer Retro purchase from this group and is the base auto card.  The bottom left card is a newer release, the base card from 2014-15 UD March Madness Collection.  Finally the card I am perhaps most excited about in this entire purchase is the Classic card in the bottom center.  This is a card that wasn't in my collection, wasn't on my checklist/wantlist and I had never seen it before.  A great addition!

The largest number of cards in this purchase were of Ben Petrick:

 These are all Bowman or Prism Parallels.  I really like it when the International parallels feature flags in the background and the top middle card does not disappoint.  The very middle card also features Mike Piazza on the other side and is oddly die cut.  There are 17 different variations of Petrick's 2000 Prism card and I was able to add these 4 that bring my total up to 9.  I guess that puts me just over half and may initiate a sub goal to actively seek.

 Here are some other non-hit cards I picked up.  The Fleer Tradition card is the glossy version.  I really like the look of the Skybox card in the center.  It is a short printed card to the regular base card, they both possess the same card number.  The Fleer Focus is the green parallel and numbered 250/322.  The two minor league cards are pretty sweet as well.

 I was able to track down 3 very affordable relics that weren't yet part of my collection.  I know there are tons of legitimate concerns about the authenticity of relics from the card companies but I still enjoy picking them up, particularly when they come for a buck or two each.

The final cards to share from this COMC purchase are these 6 certified autos of Ben Petrick. All of these were pretty cheap and new to my collection.  I am a big fan of the Bowman's Best one at the bottom of the scan but I was happy to pick up all of these.  My Petrick collection has grown to 128 different cards of the 307 I have on my checklist.  If I can acquire 26 more cards I can get over the half way point, another sub goal to consider.