1961 Giants Team Set

Back in 2013 I set a goal to complete half the Topps Giants team sets from the 1960s and I was able to exceed that goal by finishing off 7. The other 3 were major challenges and I set a goal to finish those off in 2014.  I was able to finish them off at the buzzer and celebrated the final card in my 2014 Collecting Recap post.  I never got a chance to show off the 1961 complete Giants team set and now that I have finally gotten around to scanning it, here it is for your viewing pleasure:

 The Giants had team members on 3 league leader cards, to me it was a surprise that 2 of the 3 were pitching leaders as they were known in this era for their hitting more so than their pitching.

 

I really like the rookie star from this set, it is one of my favorite features.  The Jim Marshall horrible airbrush job stands out like a sore thumb in this team set.  Not sure why Willie Mays doesn't have a hat on, did Topps think the Giants would trade him?

This is a great page.  2 Giants Rookie stars, a nice combo card featuring those league leading Giants pitchers, an appearance of all time great from 50-60 years prior in Christy Mathewson and two Hall of Famers in Marichal and Cepeda.  The Juan Marichal is his rookie card and is considered a short print.

The final page was a beast to put together.  I had the McCovey from my player collection but there were two Mays cards to pick up and a bunch of high numbers.  The high numbers are pretty scarce with very few on the market.  To finish off the page, I inserted the 2 Giants Magic Rub-Off cards.

I am so excited to have finished off all the Giants team sets from the 1960s and I have had the chance to show them all off on the blog.  The HOFers, high numbers and scarcity of some of the earlier cards made this quite a quest but now I turn my attention to the decade of the 1950s.  With all the early Willie Mays cards, this one will take a while and a decent chunk of my budget.  I didn't set a goal for the 50s team set completion this year but will still keep my eyes open for set needs at reasonable prices.

Happy New Year! - 2014 Collection Goals - A Year in Review

I can't believe it has been over 2 weeks since I have posted.  I have some great trade packages to post as well as some other awesome pick ups.  I have been spending my hobby time on an organization project but want to make posting a priority moving into the new year.  Day 1 - 1 post - off to a good start!

I decided to look back on some of my collecting goals and give myself some letter grades with a little summary of what I accomplished.  Upon reflection, I have decided my 2015 goals will be a little more streamlined, with fewer focuses. Not only will this give me a secondary benefit of having a better chance of accomplishing most of my goals, it will primarily give me focus on how to spend my time and monthly budget.

Here are my recaps:

1. Get my card room and collection organized.  Includes:
having everything unpacked and put away (may need to acquire shelving to make this happen.  Everything is unpacked but not put away.  Definitely need to invest in some shelving.  Much more organized but not as much as I want to be.
having all cards not essential to my collection loaded into Sportlots to inventory and put up for sale (helps with trading as well, it is a free inventory program) Not done, have a backlog of about 2500 football cards and scores of boxes in my card closet from pre-2005.  However I did recently get almost 3000 cards, mostly from 2000 forward, input into Sportlots.
having an active trade list on the blog.  I envision this including sets where I have large lots of cards that I could make available for trade or purchase (cover my shipping fees and maybe make a couple bucks). Didn’t make it happen.
having all my want lists updated and have them include wants for all parts of my collection This is pretty much completed.
I contemplated a D+ but I did get a lot more organized and I am happy with the status of my want lists and these were to top 2 areas I really wanted to make an impact in 2014. Overall Grade C-.

2. Acquire Certified Autos of at least 4 of these HOFers:
Barry Larkin
Paul Molitor
Eddie Murray
Robin Yount
Mike Schmidt
Rod Carew
Red Schoendienst
Sandy Koufax
New HOFers (please writers vote some new players in!)
Scored Autos of Paul Molitor, Johnny Mize, Early Wynn, Whitey Herzog and Doug Harvey.  I also picked up a sweet Biggio Auto/Patch in anticipation of his election and had autos of newly elected HOFers Joe Torre and Bobby Cox in my collection.  
While I only hit 1 name on the list, I am super excited about how I did on this goal.  Overall Grade A+

3. Tie up some loose ends
Finish my Giants base sets from 2011-2013 Made some good progress here but still have some cards to track down.
Finish up my Giants base sets from the Turkey Red, UD Retro, UD Vintage and Topps Heritage and Topps Gallery, Fleer Tradition products  Didn’t do much work in these areas, still need about a dozen cards from these set.  Totally lost focus and think going forward I am going to focus on years instead of products.
While not complete, I am pretty happy with the first bullet and will continue to whittle that list down.  COMC on Black Friday was a pretty big help.  As mentioned about, I really didn’t rally around the second bullet and think my 2015 goals will focus around years instead of products.  Overall Grade C+

4. Complete my final 3 1960s Topps Giants team sets and finish 1 Topps or Bowman set from the 1950s
In at the buzzer.  Finished off my 1961 set with the Mays All Star featured at the top of the post in December.  I didn’t get any 50s sets complete but am just short of Mays cards for 1958 Topps, 1956 Topps and 1955 Topps.  With the 60s complete, I will turn my focus onto the 50s vintage and do some damage to this want list in 2015.  
Overall Grade B+

5. Complete 2000 Topps Insert Sets - I have completed my version of a Master Topps set since 2005 and I want to start filling in the gaps at least back to 2000. I will start with the oldest set and move forward. If I get this done quick, I may be able to start on other sets in 2014.
Started off with with buying one complete insert set then lost steam and focus.  I did create checklists for each of the sets from 1999-2004 but need to determine if this will remain a focus.  
Overall Grade D

6. Acquire all Ultra and Stadium Club Giants inserts
I gave this up early when I realized almost all of them are Barry Bonds and cost quite a bit.  This goal was abandoned before the end of February.
Overall Grade Incomplete

7. Make progress on 1970s Vintage sets:
Complete my 1973 Topps Set - Done!
Obtain at least 450 different 1972 cards (starting 2014 with 346) - 481 Different, exceeded
Obtain at least 250 different 1971 cards (starting 2014 with 83) - 340 Different, exceeded
Get 1970 Topps want list down to 50 or fewer cards - Down to 17 cards, kind of
I feel I did very well here. I finished my 1973 set in November.  The 1972 goal is close enough for me especially with exceeding the 1971 goal by so much.  In November I struck a deal with my old LCS in Orange County.  He had broken a set of 1970 Topps a couple years back and had quite a few of my needs.  I set up a payment plan and he set the cards aside for me.  Technically they aren’t mine yet but I am going to count them as success as part of this goal. Overall Grade A

8. Make progress on my non Giants player collections:
Rickey Henderson
Vida Blue
Reggie Jackson
Dave Winfield
Dave Parker (Pirates only)
Ben Petrick
I didn’t track these but made progress in all areas.  I picked up a few older Rickey releases and am trying to stay current with his new stuff.  There just isn’t that much Vida out there that I don’t have so I keep my eyes open.  I picked up quite a few Reggie’s, mainly newer issues, and may get active in picking up more cards from his playing days.  Most of the Winfields I got came in a trade.  Parker and Petrick have been here and there but they will never be at the top of my list, just fun to pick up.  Overall Grade B

9. Obtain all 2014 Giants base cards from all releases
Doing well here.  Outside of a couple of the later releases I have these complete.  It helped that I decided to classify variations as parallels.  
Overall Grade A

10. Create and share my strategy on football card collection to include:
Sets to chase - I decided to only collect the Topps flagship set for football this year and ended up just buying a factory set on Black Friday.  I usually get a Jumbo box and fill in the gaps at the LCS but this year the inserts were horrible so  I went the easy/cheap route.  Topps loses its license after next year so unless Panini comes up with a great looking flagship set, 2015 may be my last base set for a while. What I may do is go after some of the Topps set holes in my collection from the past.
USC Football Collection focus - My USC football collection is currently only being bolstered through base purchases in the dime/quarter box at the LCS, bid board wins at the LCS and Sportslot auction wins.
49er Player Collection focus - I have recently decided on my 49er focus.  I have made a checklist of vintage 49ers (1950-1970) and will pursue those team sets.  I am only looking at the major brands like Bowman, Topps and Phildelphia, not the team issue or oddball cards/items.  I suspect I will extend this same focus to 1980-current at some point and in fact have several team sets from more recent years already.
I completed this goal but took until now to share so I will give an Overall Grade of B.


11. Improve my trading by:
Tracking packages I receive
Creating a speadsheet with everyone I have traded with including their address and what they collect to make it easier on me
Send out more frequent PWEs just because
Trade more
I failed in every area of this goal. I did quite a few trades, sent a few PWEs out but cannot characterize my trading as improved.  Life got busy and I didn’t make this a priority.
Overall Grade F

12. Be smarter about set collecting. I will definitely buy Jumbo Boxes of Topps Series 1, Series 2 and Update but I really need to consider outside of those sets if I should buy the set online or bust boxes to build.  I love opening packs but it gets so expensive.
I think I did a solid job here.  I collected the Flagship/Update sets with Jumbo purchases.  I haven’t been as aggressive as I was in the past with the insert sets but will still look to complete them.  I completed Opening Day and Heritage through boxes/packs/trades/single card purchases.  I bought a complete Chrome set.  I completed Archives minus the SPs and I am not sure those SPs will ever be completed.  Stadium Club is probably the one where I went a little crazy but the photography got me.  I did pass on Gypsy Queen and Ginter and all the Panini products. 
Overall Grade B

Blog Goals

Here are a few things I would like to focus on for the blog itself:
Read 6 Sports related books and post a brief review of each
250+ posts throughout the year - that is 5/week
Run at least 5 contests
Failed in all 3 areas, I read and reviewed 3 books, all in the first half of the year.  I didn’t even get to 200 posts this year and did run any contests. However I do think I found a balance for me between the blog, my family time, my other hobbies, etc. that makes me happy so while I didn’t meet these goals I set at the beginning of the year.
I still give myself an Overall Grade of B as I think I have a solid fit of the blogging into my life.

Well, there you have it, some failures, some successes but it is a hobby and as I mentioned in my last goal summary, I am happy to have struck a good balance that works for me.  I will be sharing some 2015 goals in the next week or so and hope to get back in the groove on sharing some cards more frequently. Happy New Year and Happy Collecting!

And Then There Was One

I set up couple lofty goals for myself this year and with the year being so busy and my blogging and collecting getting a little less of my attention, I suspect my YE grading of my goals will not be up to par with past years.  However I have recently inched forward to two monumental goals and I thought I would share my progress.

One of my collecting focuses has been on acquiring as many Giants base cards as possible.  I like all Giants including parallels, relics, autos, inserts and oddballs but the regular old base cards are close to my heart.  One of my goals this year was to finish off the Giants run of base cards put out by Topps throughout the 1960s.  With the purchase of this Chuck Hiller rookie from 1961 Topps I am now one card away from completing this goal.  The card I have left is the 1961 Topps All-Star of Willie Mays.  This card won't come cheap but I am patient and will try to strike with a reasonably conditioned card at the right price.

Another lofty goal was to complete the 1973 Topps set.

I have been on the lookout for this card for months.  A nicely conditioned card with the checklist unmarked seems hard to come by for under $20 with some going up into triple figures.  It is a high number and I suspect unchecked ones are somewhat scarce.  I found this lightly checked checklist (4 squares lightly filled in with pencil) for a fraction of the price.  And while I like the condition to be the best possible, this set is far from a mint representation so this card should fit in just fine.  Next up is the Michael Jack Schmidt rookie card.  I have been watching them for several months and it won't come cheap but again I will demonstrate patience.

Is anyone out there inching towards a goal or just have one complete?  For me there is little more satisfying than marking a goal off the list and I hope I can put both of these to rest in the not too distant future.

Huge Vintage Giants Pickup

Last year I set a goal to complete half of the Giants Topps team sets from the 1960s and I overachieved and finished off 7 of 10.  I set a goal this year to finish off the last 3 and I had 2 major obstacles a 1968 Topps Super Stars combo card featuring Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays and this card that I just picked up:

  I have had a search saved with daily reminders on eBay for this card for over 9 months.  It is a very challenging card to find at a reasonable price in decent condition.  It is the final card of the set, #598, it is a high number and it is short printed.  Not to mention that Gaylord Perry is a HOF pitcher.  As you can see this card isn't close to mint condition, it has some border issues primarily but overall it looks nice - decent centering, nice color, no creases or paper loss.  I was able to pick up this card that "books" for $200 for $39 delivered.

As I have done for my other completed 60s sets, I will share the cards I have picked up since the quest started last year then give you the team set in pages. Here are the pick ups:

This set is perhaps the most challenging team set in the 1960s.  In addition to the Perry as the last card, it contains Willie Mays as the first card.  Also, my favorite player Willie McCovey is a high number and Short Print as well.  If you are into book values, the Mays goes for $250, the McCovey $100 and the Perry $200.  I am very glad to have put it to rest.  Here it is in all its glory:

Boy does that look nice.  Only 1 set to go, 1961 Topps.  Here are the 5 cards I need to seek out now to finish off the 1960s Giants set:

1961 Topps #408 Christy Mathewson K's SP
1961 Topps #538 Chuck Hiller RC
1961 Topps #555 Sam Jones
1961 Topps #565 Felipe Alou
1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays AS

I guess it is time to set up some new eBay searches and try to knock this out by year end.

2013 Collection Goal Update - 1968 Topps Giants Team Set

I am still working on a goal from last year but despite the delay this was a very satisfying goal to complete.  Look what I just picked up:

Isn't it a beauty?  Three of the best of the 1960s featured on one card.  To me this is one of the best Topps combo cards ever.  I have needed this card to complete my Giants team set for several months now.  I went as far as having a daily email notification sent to me with newly listed auctions. This one came up with a reasonable Buy It Now and is in pretty nice condition so I pounced.

I am down to needed a 1966 Gaylord Perry card and 4 1961 higher numbers to finish my Giants run from the 1960s.

As I have been doing after completing a team set, here is the entire set in all its glory:

A great looking team set with a couple leaders cards, a checklist with 2 varieties, a bunch of Hall of Famers and that amazing combo card.  I also kept the two Giants from the 1968 Topps Game in the scan as well.

I am still looking daily for that Perry card and once that is in my possession I will try and knock off that 1961 set.

2013 Collection Goal Update - 1963 Topps Giants Team Set

This is the final 1960's Giants team set that I completed last year.  I am hoping to finish off the last 3 team sets in 2014 but I haven't made any progress.  Two of the cards go for big bucks and for some reason I haven't put any effort into the 5 cards I need for the 1961 set.  But let's not dwell on current failures but celebrate some past success.

At the start of 2013 I still needed a big chunk of the team set so without further ado, here are the cards added in 2013.

Billy O'Dell and a Colt 45 get to join 3 HOF legends on this Strikeout leader card.  Love me some floating heads.

Speaking of floating heads, 2 Giants featured on these 2 cards.  Every time I see one of these I thank my lucky stars that Pete Rose's card doesn't feature a Giant.

A very cool dual player card featuring 2 somewhat lesser know stars from the 60s.  I am on the lookout for any of these multiplayer cards that I don't have, regardless of who they feature.

A nice pair of Alou brothers cards, all 3 brothers typically look quite happy on all their cards and these two do not disappoint.

I remember Amalfitano as a Giants coach when I was growing up, this blue and orange combo is one of my favorites from this set.

I mentioned the happiness of the Alou brothers, Carl not so much.

Poor Mr. Coker, not the most flattering big, color photo but loving the small picture in the catchers gear.

Jim is the highest numbered card in the team set and was kinda tough to track down.

The first, and only, big star I needed on this team set.  This card has been reprinted and it is one of my favorites from the set.

The insert photo is a nice grip photo.  I know there are a couple grip collectors out there, this may be a nice vintage card to target.

The last card I picked up to finish it up was the team card, for some reason that seems appropriate.

Here is the entire team set with a couple bonus stamps at the end, enjoy:

2013 Collection Goal Update - 1960 Topps Giants Team Set

Believe it or not I am still working on sharing the goods from my 2013 collection goals.  One of my biggest focuses was on completing some Giants team sets from the 1960s.  I did a nice job completing 7 sets with a goal of only 5.  As I reflect back on my 2014 so far, I don't believe I have picked up any vintage Giants yet.  I need to fix that.

As I have done with past team sets, I will share my last few pick ups (mostly those picked up in 2013) and then show the entire team set in all its glory.

First up is this nice looking Antonelli, I am big fan of this card design with the black and white full body shot and a bigger color close up.  I also love the old school Giants logo featured on these cards.  As you will see when I show the entire team set, you will notice Antonelli had an all star card in this set as well. 

Blasingame played for 5 different teams in his career with his 1 full year with the Giants consisting of 139 games and a whopping 0.235 batting average.  He lasted 3 games in 1961 before being traded to the Reds as part of the Ed Bailey trade.

Sam Jones had a pretty cool nickname - Toothpick Sam due I am guessing to his 6'4" 192 lb. build.  This card features Sam after his best career season in 1959 where he went 21-15 with a league leading 4 shutouts and a 2.83 ERA.  He came in 2nd to Early Wynn for the Cy Young award and was named The Sporting News National League pitcher of the year.

This Mike McCormick card is a higher number and was challenging to track down.  McCormick was a pretty decent pitcher and spent 11 of his 16 years with the Giants winning over 100 games combined during those seasons.

These Miller and Rodgers cards are variations, since there weren't any high priced variations I decided to go after these as well.  The variations are either a gray or white back to the cards.  As you will see when I show the team set, I still have some variations to track down.

This is one of my favorite cards of the team set due mostly to the coloring used in Jack Sanford's nameplate.  Seems like most of the cards I picked up last were Giants pitchers.  Another solid but not spectacular player, his best year was in 1962 where he won 24 games and finished in 2nd in the Cy Young voting.

The final card before I show off the entire team set was the final card I purchased to finish this team set off.  1959 was Al Worthington's final year with the Giants, he started with them in 1953.

Now here is the set it all its glory.  I want you to see it consecutively in all its glory so this will be my final commentary.  This set was a challenge with 3 different cards featuring Willie Mays.  This set also includes the rookie of my favorite player - Willie McCovey - and his All-Star card as well.  You will notice 2 gaps in my pages, these are for variations that I need of Sam Jones and Don Blasingame.

Enjoy...