My Trip to Cooperstown - Part 4 - Non-Card Items

It has taken me way too long to get to this point but I am finally posting my final post from my trip to Cooperstown earlier this year.  I really need to pick up the pace on posting.  This post represents the non card items I picked up on my trip to the Hall of Fame:

First up is the cool Giants book:

This is a pretty cool read. It includes things Giants fans should do and also facts and information fans should know.  When I thumbed through the book it appeared that there was quite a bit I probably already knew but also some fun stuff to read and learn about.  I have a few other books in progress and in the queue so this may take a while to get read but I will share my thoughts once I do get a chance to read it.

Next up is an autographed 8X10 photo of Giants HOFer Monte Irvin.

Pretty cool story behind this one.  As I may have mentioned before, prices on baseball memorabilia and cards are not what you would call bargains around Cooperstown and I guess that makes some sense.  In my post sharing the oversized and oddball cards I purchased, I mentioned that most were bought at a store in the parking lot of the baseball field.  The prices there were solid but what was super cool was that he noticed just about everything I was buy were Giants and he tossed this in for free!  What a great gesture and a cool addition to my collection.

The final item I picked up is this cool Willie McCovey display item.  It is about post card sized, encased in plastic and contains a coin with Willie's picture on it.  It has a little plastic holder to allow it to be displayed standing up, a nice new collectible for my Stretch collection.  I bought it at the gift shop at the Hall of Fame and it now holds a nice place on my new bookshelf in my card room.

Sorry it took a while but it was fun to relive the purchase part of the trip through these posts.

My Trip to Cooperstown - Part 3 - The Oversized and Oddball

Here is my 3rd of 4 posts about my trip to Cooperstown a little ways back.  I had intended to do these back to back to back to back but my posting has been sporadic at best.  In addition to the normal work and home duties, we hosted Thanksgiving and my wonderful little girl's first birthday party over the past couple week.  Also, I have been working to get my card room in order now that most of the rest of the house is in order.  Once it is fully done, I will get some pics up share the set up - however I am still hours and hours away from being done.

The cards to share tonight are all over-sized oddballs.  Most were purchased from a store that is located in the parking lot of the baseball diamond on Main St. in Cooperstown.  I had missed it on my first trip but will not miss it again. The guy has been there for decades and specializes in oddballs.  He had team bags hanging throughout the store with TCMA sets, lots of little box sets and odd sized cards in all the nooks and crannies.  I was the only person in the store for most of my visit and the guy was really friendly.  He gave me a gift at checkout that will be part of my final post.

On to the cards:

The first 6 scans are All-Time Greats postcards put out by TCMA in the early 70s.  I really enjoy the black and white photography captured on these.   Based on the checklist I was able to find, I still need 3 more to finish off a Giants team set.

 Here are some additional postcards with, in my opinion even better photography.  These 4 were printed in 1978 by Dover Publishing and are perforated and were taken from a book titled Great Baseball Players of the Past: Thirty-Two Picture Postcards.  There are 2 more Giants to track down and I can't wait to see what they look like.  The old time photography is just amazing.

This card features rivals Willie Mays and Don Drysdale and was printed in 1984 by TCMA.  It is a nice photo paying tribute to two Hall of Famers.

This is another TCMA Postcard issue from 1985 of Willie Mays from back in the New York days solo.  Somewhat of an odd photo but a pleasant add to the Giants collection.

This next card is an oddball Exhibit card of Catcher Roger Bresnahan.  As I kid I had a solid stack of these cards from a swap meet purchase, I need to see if I can track those down.  In the meantime this card will have to tide me over.

This item is a flip book of Barry Bonds.  I haven't cracked the cellophane yet and I am not sure if I will. I am kind of being stupid as this isn't something I would ever sell, it is now part of my collection so I should just crack it open and enjoy the flipping.
 

 My only non-Giants card of this purchase is the Jumbo Topps Finest card for my Rickey Henderson collection.  This card has been elusive for me and I was very happy to run across in across the country and bring it home.

The final item is the Willie McCovey item.  It appears to be some sort of a pencil sketch.  It is signed Amore '90 in the bottom right corner. It has a pretty strong resemblance to Stretch, my only challenge is going to be how to display it in my binder.  It may end up in its own single page as I think it is too big to fit into a double page.

There you have it, all my odd sized purchase for that trip to Cooperstown.  My last post will display a couple items that aren't card related (but baseball related) during my Cooperstown trip.

My Trip to Cooperstown - Part 2 - The Base

This is the second post showing off my wears from a fairly recent trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This time I thought I would show off the base cards that I picked up out of a few "bargain" bins that I ran across.

 I didn't spend time checking my list on my phone much on this trip but did quite well, I didn't purchase any duplicates!  This is a nice selection of Giants greats.  The Sweet Spot Mel Ott is numbered to 825 and offers up a pretty unique picture.  The John McGraw is an insert numbered out of 500.  I kind of wish the photo was a little darker - it seems quite muted, not the best design.  The Topps Super Teams card celebrating the 1951 Giants is pretty cool.  I recently scored a shiny parallel as well.  The 1971 Mays reprint is one of only a few I have in my collection, I have quite a bit of work to do to complete that set.  However, the Fan Favorites Mays was the last card I needed to complete the entire Giants run of Fan Favorites, completing one of my 2013 collecting goals.  Finally a card celebrating Bobby Thomson but not for what you may think. I celebrates him moving to 1st base so the Alou Brothers could share the same outfield - I think that is one of the neatest baseball stories, can you imagine 3 brothers playing together at the highest level?

 This next group features 3 different Carl Hubbell cards: a 1992 Cramer Baseball Legends, and UD Playball reprint and a Sportsflics Decade Greats card.  All 3 feature Carl in his throwing follow through and they are all slightly different.  The man looks as if was pretty consistent in his form which probably helped in his success.  The Mays card is a super thick card from Donruss Biography and celebrates Mays' 25 career HR.  There are tons of these and this is my second. This is not a set I will be going after an entire run of.  The Tom Seaver card may seem out of place but as a former Trojan I couldn't pass up a card of Tom Terrific in his USC uni and featuring the SC logo - very cool.  Finally a 1986 Sportsdesign card of the Dandy Dominican Juan Marichal.

 I am a sucker for Shiny and picked up these 6 shiny cards.  The first two are from Topps Tribute and celebrate the induction years of Mel Ott and Jon McGraw. These cards are executed so well and look so nice that putting together a set my be on my horizon, although probably quite distant.  The Mays card is a parallel from Donruss Sports Legends, not too exciting but I always enjoy adding new cards from Mr. Mays to my collection.  The bottom 3 are from Topps Archives Reserve.  I am close to my 2013 goal of finishing off the Archives Giants and Reserve just may make its way onto the 2014 goal list.

My last 6 pickups are for the Dave Parker collection I mentioned in my last HOF visit post.  All great representations of Dave in his outstanding Pirates uniform.

Overall nothing too rare but some very nice additions to my collection.  My next post will include some very cool oddball cards I was able to find on my visit.

My Trip to Cooperstown - Part 1 - The Vintage and Relics

A couple months back I had a work trip to Saratoga Springs, NY for a few days and my wife was wonderful enough to allow me to tack on a couple extra days on the trip and take a quick detour over to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was my second trip, I went 2 years back, and while it wasn't quite the religious experience as my first trip, I still had a great time.  Many of the displays were the same although I did get a chance to see the new Giants World Championship exhibit (2 trips, 2 opportunities to see an exhibit celebrating my team as the champs).  There was also a vacant area that was between exhibits but it is still great to be able to see all the great memorabilia and walk among relics from the greats of my favorite sport.

In addition to the museum itself, Main Street in Cooperstown is cool with memorabilia dealers and sports card dealers lining the streets.  I, of course, had to pick up some cardboard goodies for my Giants collection.  My first trip focused primarily on vintage Giants as I had just started my quest to collect Giants.  This trip had more of an oddball feel to it.  I am going to split my purchases into a few different posts so I will start with my vintage and relic purchases.

I only brought home one vintage card, this 1951 Bowman Sal Maglie RC.

I got this at a store that shares the name with Boston Red Sox HOFer Carl Yastrzemski which happened to be the place where I scored most of my vintage last time.  The store had moved a block or two closer to the museum but still had lots of cool stuff.  The prices in Cooperstown are typically pretty high but this place seemed to be the most reasonable as well.  This card is far from mint but I usually don't worry about that and I love the Bowman cards from this era.

Next up are 5 relics I picked up at a couple different stores:

 This Topps Pristine relic of Jeff Kent is a nice looking shiny card and Kent is one of 3 Giants in the set.  I just got a second one in a package this week which I will be sharing later and I like the look of this set.

 Next up is an SP Legendary Cuts relic of Omar Vizquel from his stint with the Giants.  The set is title Destined for History and I do think Omar was a historic player.  I wonder how much HOF consideration he will be given.

 My last Giants relic is this Classic Seasons card of will Clark from 2005 UD Classics.  I feel like I have been picking up cards of Clark and Kevin Mitchell from this set forever and new ones keep popping up.  I have no complaints though, I think this is a nicely designed card.

 My final 2 relics are of Dave Parker.  I have started picking up cards of Parker but only those where he is donning the Pirates uniform.  This is my first time starting a player collection where I am not going after each and every card.  It is just that I remember Parker best as a Pirate and I love the uniforms of that era.  The SP Legendary Cuts card isn't overly exciting but I do like the Pirates P inked onto the wood, a very nice touch.

While the prior card isn't that exciting to me, I really enjoy this Diamond King Gallery of the Stars design.  It has 2 relics, a jersey and bat to go with a great picture of Parker wearing the bright yellow jersey and great hat.  Two very nice pick ups for the Parker start up collection.

I will continue to show off the other items I acquired on the trip over the next few days.