McCovey Monday and Contest Results

Slacking a bit on my posting after a nice little stretch of posts so I thought I would knock out a quick McCovey Monday post showing my newest addition and share the results of my recent contest.

First up the Willie Mac addition:

What is that, you say?  If you guessed that it isn't a card you are correct.  This is a patch that was used on the sleeves of Giants jerseys last year to memorialize the career of McCovey who passed on Halloween of 2018.  It is pretty small, about 1 3/4" in diameter which is cool because it will fit in a card slot in one of my McCovey binders.  I have been meaning to seek one of these out for some time and glad to have one in my collection.

My goal in having the contest was to drum up some more comments and view.  While that post had more, not sure I am seeing it on other posts but I am surprisingly okay about that.  Some of my satisfaction in the past came from views and comments and while I enjoy getting comments I have found my joy almost solely comes from sharing my thoughts and collection along with documenting my collecting journey.

Now on to the results.  The winner was the person who guessed closest to the exact price I paid for a trio of cards shared in this post.  The amount I paid was $64 delivered so the winner is P-Town Tom of Waiting 'til Next Year who guessed $63.43.  Great guess Tom.  I feel that was a pretty good price and even a better guess. 

Thanks to all who participated in the contest.  Tom I will look to dig up some cards to send you way as a thank you.  Shoot me your mailing address when you have a chance.

A Contest and a New Player Collection

Haven't posted in a while and will spare you the explanation, life is busy blah blah blah.  I am still collection and got my Black Friday COMC order in the mail this week, plus I am off work until January 2nd so the blogging bug bit me.

Before I get to the contest, I have to show off some cards, right?  Stick with me or scroll down for the contest details.

As I was making some Black Friday purchases, I decided to start a new player collection of Nate "Tiny" Archibald.  Archibald is a Basketball Hall of Famers and played 14 NBA seasons for the Cincinnati Royals/KC Kings, New York Nets, Buffalo Braves, Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks.  My interest in Nate stems from a couple of things.  First when I was in middle school, the Kings NBA franchise moved from KC to Sacramento, where I was living.  My interest in basketball spiked and seeing the Archibald #1 retired in the rafters at Arco Arena signified he was an all time great to an impressionable newish basketball fan.

Over the past few years I have taken an interest in the pre-Magic/Bird NBA and read a few books.  The sport wasn't nearly as popular in the 60s and 70s but fortunately a few books have come out about that time and I have enjoyed getting to know about the vintage NBA and ABA.  Archibald is typically highlighted in these books as he earned numerous accolades and records during his playing days.  His greatness and ties to my favorite franchise got him on my radar.  The reasonable prices on his cards and the desire to add some samples of unrepresented sets of vintage basketball cards into my collection resulted in me pulling the trigger.

I decided to only strongly pursue cards from Tiny's playing days.  If I run across a modern card of his for a reasonable price I am sure I will pick it up but my want list will consist of the playing day cards.  I made quite a dent:

I really love the designs of these Topps cards with his rookie card being in the top left corner (1971-72 Topps) and several All-Star accolades represented during his time on the Kings.  I think think the 1972-73 design  has to be my favorite.

A cool part of going after these Nate cards was having a reason to pick up these oversized issues.  While they may be a pain to store, they sure do look great.  I was able to pick up the Carvel disc for a fair price and jumped on it.  It comes from 1975.

If the All-Star notations weren't enough to demonstrate his greatness, these leaders cards should put it over the top.  He is in some great company on these cards.  I find it interesting that they celebrated both the guys who scored the most points and had the highest scoring average on separate cards.

Finally, here are the post-Kings career cards that I picked up.  In all I was able to pick up almost all his cards from his playing career missing out on a Team Leader card from 1975-76 and some oddball issues.

On to the contest. I thought I would reward anyone who has stuck with me and left me on their blog role with a contest, actually multiple contests, over the next couple of weeks.  The way to enter my contests will be to answer some questions about the recent 387 card order I received from COMC.  I will attach a prize to each of the questions and whoever guesses correctly or most closely will win the prize, pretty simple.  You can attempt to answer all the questions but once you win one prize, you won't be eligible for the remaining prizes.  I will close each of the contests a couple days apart.

Contest #1 - The prize is some duplicate vintage baseball cards I accidentally bought in this COMC order

To win, guess which set currently on my want list is the set I picked up the most cards I needed in this order.  The tie breaker will be to guess how many cards I knocked off the want list.

Contest #2 - The prize is a junk wax era set of your choice from a list I will provide.  I am working through the collection I bought and will have a list available for the winner.  The list will certainly include 1986-91 Topps, 1988 & 90-92 Donruss, 1989-91 Score and 1990 Fleer baseball sets and 1990 Score Football.  I will probably be able to add more.

To win, outside of the 24 Nate Archibald cards I shared above, which one of my player collections received the most additions in this COMC order.  The tie breaker will be to guess how many.

Contest #3 - The prize is a lot of 25 auto and relic cards.  These won't be high dollar cards but great for trades or to include in random acts of kindness packages.  I will let you pick baseball or football and will try to include a couple from your team of choice if I can.

To win, guess the number of hits (autos and relics) I picked up for my USC Trojan football card collection in this haul.  As I hint I will share at 115 of the cards I picked up went into my Trojan collection.

Contest #4 - The prize will be another one of the sets mentioned above in Contest #2

To win, pick which brand of cards I picked up the most of for my Giants collection in this order.  They were all very recent cards as a hint.  The choices are: Bowman Chrome, Bowman Platinum, Stadium Club, Allen & Ginter, Archives, Big League, Chrome, Flagship, Gypsy Queen, Heritage or Museum Collection.  The tie breaker will be to guess how many cards of that brand I picked up.

Feel free to leave guesses on all 4 contests on this post.  I will most likely end the first contest shortly after Christmas then each subsequent one 2-3 days later.

Contest Win - Collector's Crack

Do you ever get so behind in life that you just throw up your hands and give up?  I am typically a fairly persistent guy and it serves me well at work and at home.  But I have reached that point with trying to catch up with past packages all my friends in the blogosphere have sent my way.  I did a great job of scanning the cards but did not keep track of the other details around the trades or packages I received.  I want to toss out a blanket apology to everyone I slight and hope that my past packages and recent team stack giveaways earn me back a little street cred in the blogging community.

This group of cards was my tipping point.  I scanned these cards months ago and uploaded them to blogger.com to do a post and they sat in the draft folder since.  All I noted was that these cards came my way in a contest win from Collector's Crack.  I have wracked my brain for a couple of days and went back on his blog about a year to see if I could remember what contest I won and I failed in my quest.

However, even with out those details, I figured I would share these cards.  I already went to the trouble to scan and upload the cards and they are a mighty fine batch as you will see.

Here is a cool mini relic from Topps 206.  I don't believe I ever opened and of these cards back when they came out but they are right up my alley with an old school design and minis.

Here is a nice quad of cards that fit nicely into my collection, all were needs.  Can't decide which one if my favorite, I think it comes down to the knothole Mays and the psychedelic Williams. 

I also scored these 5 Kevin Mitchell cards from a Star set.  I have done some eBay searches looking for some Giants Star cards and sets for my player collection but haven't pulled the trigger yet.  These were back from the glory days when about 50 companies were putting out cards.

The final card is this Topps Signature Moves auto card of Jose Cruz Jr.  His tenure with the Giants was short and he didn't live up to our high hopes but this is a really nice looking auto card.

Thanks to Collector's Crack for the contest win, even if I can't remember what I won for exactly.

Sometimes it is Better to be Lucky Instead of Good

I would have to say I have not been a very good blogger over the past year or two.  Daily posting has gone by the wayside.  I haven't put together a contest in forever.  I don't get to read and comment on all the blogs I typically enjoy as often as I would like.  I haven't posted all the cards generous bloggers have sent my way nor sent out as many packages as I would like.

Despite being a bad blogger, I still seem to have a little luck on my side.  I have won a few contests in my day and recently entered one over at Sports Card Info.  Typically Sports Card Info runs a weekly contest with a single card giveaway - usually an auto or a relic.  I used to enter every week but have lately limited myself to only enter when there is a card that will find a nice spot in my collection. A few weeks back I saw a high end relic of a future HOFer who isn't well represented in my collection so I entered.  As luck would have it, I won!

Check out this Topps Tier 1 relic of future HOFer Albert Pujols.  I like the design of the card with Pujols being the star.  Sure a patch would be nice instead of the plain gray relic but you can't expect a patch in all 331 cards.  I was very glad to bring this home.  This is my second Albert relic and a big improvement over the unlicensed Donruss Jersey Kings relic.

Thanks to Sports Card Info for the generosity and for helping me add a great card to my collection.  If you aren't following the blog, it is a worthy follow and who knows you may win a card for your collection and also get this cool pin as a bonus.

Sketch Card Contest Winnings - The Shining

I am a huge Stephen King fan, I have all of his books (and there are a ton) and have read almost all of them - just a couple to go.  When Corky over at Pack War had a contest for some of his sketch cards back in late October/early November I saw a lot of cards I really liked but was immediately drawn to his sketch of Jack Torrance of The Shining fame.  Jack was fresh in my mind as I had just finished up Doctor Sleep a few months before which is a book featuring Jack's son Dan.  I quickly entered the contest and hoped to score the Torrance card.

There was a surprising low turnout for the contest with only 7 entries and I believe 8 sketch cards so everyone was a winner.  After some randoming, I ended up right in the middle at #4.  Lucky for me, Freddy Krueger, The Invisible Man and Jason Voorhees went in the 3 picks and my #1 pick was there for the taking.  Check it out.

Super cool and a great, unique addition to my collection.  Thanks Corky!

As I was prepping this post, I realized I had won another contest over at Pack Wars - I am so miserably behind in my trade, contest and gift posts.  I figured I would also share the cool stuff I received in the last contest as well.

As I recall, the contest was to get one of a variety of items and I selected this Sammy Sosa collector's tin with a card and the ability to turn it into a display.  I have a couple others of these in my collection as I scored the Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire in a group break.  The Sammy looks very cool.  I wonder if what looks to be some softening by the HOF voters towards some of the suspected steroid users will every get Sammy into the HOF. Personally I doubt it but you never know.

Also included were some misc. Giants cards and some very cool ones at that.

 The Bonds is a Leaf Limited gold parallel and the Hubbell helped me complete that team set.  Also included were a Freak rookie, a couple of nice looking Poseys and a Kevin Mitchell siting.

 These 3 also found nice spots in my collection.  Back when 2012 Panini Cooperstown was released the middle woodlike card was a replacement in each box for what was supposed to be a different kind of hit. It ended up dropping the box cost of cards which helped me complete the set.  Those 2012 and 2013 Panini Cooperstown releases are some of my favorite of the decade.

Finally, a fairly rare siting here on the blog, basketball cards.  I do have a few player collections of hoops cards and Corky was able to knock these 3 off the want list.

Corky, sorry for the delay in finally posting these great cards you sent my way.  Your creativity and skill on your customs is something I envy and your generosity is greatly appreciated!

Contest Win! from Red Cardboard

Recently there was a contest held over at Red Cardboard, he was giving away some of his extra vintage Reds card.  Since I am starting to have some space and storage issues, I have limited myself to only entering contests that have some cards that are missing from my collection and that I really want and there were a few cards in this contest that definitely fit the bill.

Here are some of my favorites from the nice stack of winnings that came my way:

 There was a nice stack of non-Reds cards that were included in the prize package and here are some of my favorites.  That trio across the top are from the holofoil parallels sets found in retail packs.  They have a nice shiny finish and are great looking cards.  Speaking of shiny, the Nolan Ryan in the bottom left is an actual hologram card also featuring Sylvester the cat.  I have a Reggie Jackson from this set and am thinking this set would be a fun break.  The Reggie and Pete card from 1975 Topps ended up being a need for my Reggie Jackson collection.  I didn't realize it until after I did the scan or I would have probably pulled it out from this group and highlighted it...

like I did for this Rickey Henderson card.  This is the gold holofoil parallel and is a need for my Rickey collection.  Pretty awesome to get 2 player collection needs in a random stack of cards.

There was quite a variety in this group of cards including this IP auto of former Reds starting pitcher.  I could be misremembering but I seem to recall seeing Berenyi pitch against the Giants at a game I attended in the mid-80s.

Now onto some of the cards featured in the contest post - vintage!  The 1965 Chico Ruiz is a great looking card.  I love the cap style and this happens to be a high number short print.  When I finish off my sets in the 70s, the 65 set is one of the ones I am considering collecting so this card will go with my small stack of other 65s until that decision is made.  The Borbon is a cool miscut, I recall getting a pack in 1986 with cards cut this way back in the day.  The 1955 Bowman set is one of my favorites and I am very happy to pick up a card from that set.

1975s Minis and Kellogg's cards - a whole lot of awesomeness in one scan!

Now here are the 3 cards from the original contest post that got me excited.  I have contemplated putting together a player collection of George Foster for quite some time.  He was one of the best players from my childhood and I don't think he gets enough love in the baseball community. He was one of the most feared sluggers and I just love his facial expressions in his cards - and here you get 3 great ones.  I haven't yet decided if I will officially collect Foster but these 3 cards will definitely have a place in my collection.

Thank you Red Cardboard for the great Contest goods!

Contest Winner

A few days back I posted my box break for a 2015 Topps Jumbo Box but left out one hit.  I held a contest and the person who guessed what the hit was or was closest in my opinion will win my other 2 hits along with my duplicate base cards.

First up, let's take a look at one of the best hits I have ever gotten:

This is an amazing Highlight of the Year Relic Auto of Strike Out King Nolan Ryan.  The swatch features 3 colors of the amazing rainbow Astros uniform and the card is numbered 06/10.  The card celebrates Ryan passing Walter Johnson for the all time career strikeout record back in 1983. I remember the event well.

A few years back I made a big trade on a message board that added a Nolan Ryan auto to my HOF collection.  I am currently trying to decide if I will keep both autos, sell the other card or put this one up for auction.  I find this card amazing to look at and love that I pulled it myself.

Now for the winner of the contest.  Nobody nailed the card exactly which I have to say I anticipated. However, only one person guessed a card from this subset and while he didn't chose Nolan as the subject of the card, he did pick another HOF right hander - Juan Marichal.  The contest winner is Josh D of the Royals and Randoms blog.  Thanks for all the entries and congratulations Josh. Shoot me your mailing address and I will send your winnings and a few extras your way.

Happy Topps Day Continued and a Contest!

Time to show the highlights of the rest of my Jumbo Box of 2015 Topps.  I will share a few cards of each of the 9 remaining packs.  If you wait until the end of the post, I will share details of a contest.  I pulled perhaps my best pull ever out of a Topps flagship product and the identification of that card will be tied to the contest.

Here are my favorites from Pack #2:

 A great final tribute to Paul Konerko, glad to see him properly honored as well.  I will include a few base cards in each scan and the Kershaw and Jeter show how the horizontal cards show some action.  The Cron card has the Future Stars designation in foil across the top.  I liked the Gentry based on how far up the handle the bunt seems to be hitting the bat.  The inspired play inserts seem to pair a current and past star of a team, good pairing of Kimbrel and Smoltz.  Topps included some stamped buy back cards and it was cool to get a 60s Senator although the condition isn't great.  The Ted Williams picture has been used quite a bit but it is still a nice card.  Finally a celebration of Jose Canseco's 40-40 season.


Pack #3:

 I didn't take a picture of the box or packs but Puig is the cover guy this year.  It appears not every team has a team card in Series 1.  Great insert of Mr. Cub, I am really a fan of all the insert sets this year and look forward to building them.  My second buy back was in this pack, this time from 1979.  These are getting a little old to me.  It is getting late and I am getting tired so I won't be commenting on all the cards but will share 9 per pack for your viewing pleasure.


Pack #4

 The Pineda is my first gold parallel.  The rookie cup makes a return.  The Trout picture is a great one, another horizontal card.  I am a huge fan of the Gallery of Greats inserts and was lucky enough to pull Giant HOFer Willie Mays.  I am guessing these will be the insert set that is hard to track down in Series 1.


Pack #5

 There is card #1 Derek Jeter, not a Yankee fan and while I respect Jeter, I was never a huge fan of his either but this is a great photo and fitting tribute.  The two rookies of the year came in the same pack.  The Pence photo is one of my favorites, gotta love the tongue sticking out.  Look how skinny A-Rod was back in the day.


Pack #6

 Take note of the Adam Jones card, it will come into play later in the break. The inserts in this box are great highlighted by Juan Marichal's high leg kick and a Roberto Clemente Gallery of Greats.  Man do those cards look nice!

Pack #7:

The highlight of Pack #7 was a hit that I am not sharing here.  It will be part of the contest at the bottom.  Still some good cards with a Buster Posey Archetypes, a wonderfully uniformed Nolan Ryan, an ESPN rookie flashback card and a Highlight of Roger Maris' 61 HRs.


Pack #8:

 Some good photos on the base cards here.  Another gold parallel, not real excited about any of the parallels in this box including the Gonzalez.  The Willie Mays insert is a great photo I don't recall seeing before - yeah!  The Roark card is a shiny rainbow parallel that isn't numbered.  The Iron Horse is a good looking card as well.


Pack #9:

 I love the photo of Dioner Navarro getting ready to slide.  I am thinking a disaster is imminent.  Teddy Ballgame, the Georgia Peach and Hawk all make insert appearances.  As teased a little earlier, I pulled an SP parallel of Adam Jones blowing a bubble.

Pack #10:

Here is the final pack of the Jumbo Box and the 3rd hit (although I didn't share hit #2).  The players I got for the Archetypes cards has been as good as good gets.  A great card of the Babe and a Career High relic of Reds right hander Johnny Cueto.


CONTEST DETAILS
The unshared hit I pulled is perhaps the greatest pull I have ever gotten from a Topps flagship box and one of my best pulls ever.  The contest is to guess the card I pulled.  If you know how the Jumbo boxes work, you should know that the card is autographed.  Outside of that I won't give any more hints.  Just leave a comment on this post with your guess of what the hit is and I will send a prize to the person who gets the closest to the right card.  Unless someone hits it right on, there may be some judgement involved but it is my contest so I have the right to use some judgement.

The winner will the the other 2 hits from this box, all my duplicates from this box (should be a solid starter lot) and some other cards I dig up that fit the winner's collecting interests.

It is been a while since I did a contest, hoping for lots of good guesses and fun entries.

Good luck!