McCovey Monday - 1980 Souvenir Scoresheet

I have been having fun trying to add new items to my Willie McCovey collection that are not cards.  His vintage cards that I need are either super rare (and if I can find them they are pretty costly) or parallels and hits from 2001 forward (I find it hard to pay good money for a cards /25 when I have the /100 and the /10 already).  The main thing I am looking for are vintage items with photos of Willie Mac, ideally pictures I haven't seen before.

I set up a search for magazines and publications on eBay and have picked up a few cool things that I plan to show in the coming weeks.  Today I thought I would start with a unique item, it was the first time I had ever seen it and when I purchased it there weren't any others on sale.

This is a scorecard from the Willie McCovey Old Timers Game played at Candlestick Park on 9/20/80.

This is the front of the scorecard and measures about 6 1/4" X 9 1/4".  It features an awesome photo of Seals Stadium, the original home of the SF Giants and a cool photo of Stretch in the follow through of his swing with his retired #44 and last name in full view.  He played his last game for the Giants on July 6th, 1980 so they must have rushed to put this together.

A quick side note, I saw Willie's 5th to the last game in person on June 29th at Candlestick.  He hit a pinch hit double against the Dodgers to drive in a walk off run in what would be his last extra base hit, his last 3rd to the last RBI and second to the last hit.  It was pretty wild.

The back shows the box score of a game on 7/30/59 which is Willie's famous debut against Robin Roberts where he went 4 for 4 with 2 triples.   There are also nice round photos of the Giants' starting lineup and manager circling a larger picture of McCovey.

The inside of the scorecard is pretty neat as well:

Not only does it have a place to keep score, the sides highlight players that I assume were playing in the Oldtimer's game.  It appears they were able to drum up the same starting lineup from his debut game in 1959 to play against some other former players including Robin Roberts.  I would have loved to see this game.

Stay tuned for some other vintage McCovey stuff.  While they are a little more challenging to scan/photo for the blog, they are super cool to collect and look at.

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.

McCovey Monday - Magazines

Recently I hatched a plan to expand my Willie McCovey collection by picking up vintage magazines that feature him.  I bought a group of magazines on Facebook Marketplace over a year ago that featured one with Willie Mac on the cover and, while I have done some eBay searches I have yet to pull the trigger on bringing home more but that is about to change.  Here is the one I do have:

This is a Sport Magazine from 1960 and McCovey is one of 6 people they are spotlighting for the season which, at this point, had been underway for about a month.  Stretch had started with a bang winning the ROY award in 1959 despite not playing a full season and there was excitement about what his first full season could bring.

Quite a while back a fellow collector sent me this full page picture that has been pulled from a magazine that I also keep with my collection.  While it isn't a cover, I really enjoy having things like this in my collection as well.

I imagine this is Willie looking back to the umpire after a called strike upset with the call and based on his stature and that stare I suspect he got the next call.

With McCovey being featured on so few new releases and many of the cards I need being rare and/or expensive, I think this is a good way to add to my collection. Plus I have found reading these old magazines is great.  In addition to learning quite a bit, I love the art and style placed into magazine articles from the 60s and 70s.

I think my next step will be to do some searching and try to create a checklist of magazines where McCovey appeared on the cover.  This should help me with some direction and focus.

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.

McCovey Monday - 2020 Topps Heritage Greatest Moment and 1971 Topps Greatest Moments

I haven't done a McCovey Monday in a while and I think the last one I did was numbered 100.  I made the decision to stop numbering these posts to make my life a bit easier.  I also am dumping my into, if you want to know why I have a McCovey Monday after this one, you can look back in the archives.  He was my favorite player and I have a pretty solid collection of his cards I like to showcase.

Today I am showing my first, and to date only, pick-up of 2020.  He has a couple coin and stamp cards in 2020 Heritage in addition to this card but I have realized those go for way too much each year from those crazy Heritage set collectors.  I am glad to have this one as it is pretty cool and a nice throwback.

This is an oversized box topper out of 2020 Topps Heritage and is a throwback to similar cards put out in 1971 by Topps.  This one highlights a 9th inning grand slam by Willie McCovey to help lead the Giants to a comeback win against the Pirates in July 1971.  Cool card and very happy Willie was featured in this set.

It would have been criminal to not include him since he was also in the original product:

Here is the original card, it compares fairly well to the Heritage card put out this year.  For whatever reason they changed the colors of the circle around his head on the left and his name right below.  The font of his name is a little off but pretty close.  The biggest puzzle to me is why they changed it from Baseball's Greatest Moments to The Game's Greatest Moments - no idea why that was done.  The 1971 version features his famous first game heroics against fellow HOFer Robin Roberts.

I am glad to be able to add a Willie to the collection in 2020.  I am hoping he shows up again in Archives and Ginter this year so I can continue to add new cards - the older cards I need are typically low numbered or hard to find.

McCovey Monday #100 - 2005 Prime Cuts MLB Timeline Jersey Number 16/25

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

During my most recent COMC order I was lucky enough to secure some new cards for my McCovey collection from 2005 at reasonable prices.  2005 was a peak year in the production of McCovey with over 800 different cards so I have quite a few gaps in my collection but most of the holes I need to fill aren't cheap to find.

I thought I would share this pick up with you today out of 2005 Prime Cuts:

I really enjoy this card, there are several cool features.  The picture of Willie Mac isn't huge but it is placed up the corner like a postage stamp.  The timeline theme results in his HOF election year of 1986 showing up at the bottom - I like cards that celebrate Hall of Fame elections.  The best part of this card is the double jersey swatch in the shape of his number 44 jersey number.

Here is the back of the card that "guarantees" that is comes from a game-worn item.  I also figured I could show off the serial numbering of 16/25, a fairly hard to come by card 14 years after the release.

McCovey Monday #99 - 2019 Hits Cards Allstars HOF Jumbo Memorabilia 8/10

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Today's card is from Hits Memorabilia and it is a jumbo relic card of Willie McCovey.  I have seen quite a few McCovey cards from this set but this is the first one I actually picked up.  I know this is an unlicensed product but really didn't know too much about the company.  They share their web address on the back of the card so I decided to take a look.

The front page of the site shares a quote from the founder:

Our goal at Hits Memorabilia is to bring affordable, authentic, highly collectible products to sports and entertainment collectors. Products we create include various sized memorabilia displays, and trading cards. With a concentration on prime memorabilia and authenticity innovation, we have steadily been growing and improving since 2010. Thank you for visiting our site- Gary O'Brien Jr, Founder

One cool thing I noticed is that they keep a photographic database of every card they produce in order to combat any potential tampering with their cards to put in higher end patches.  Pretty solid concept in my book as many of their cards have pretty cool patches.

My card however just has a nice large white swatch of allegedly game worn material.  The web site shows a pair of McCovey pants from 1972 and even display the label in the pants with his name on them.   Here is a scan of the front and back of the card I picked up:

 This also has a nice low serial number of 8/10.  I am glad to have this in my collection but won't be paying a premium like I would for a card from a more mainstream product right now.  Does anyone out there have any Hits cards?  Would you pick them up if they were from your team/player?

McCovey Monday #98 - 2019 Topps Archive Rainbow

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

I am a fan of Topps Archives.  I know there are some issues with the tributes not quite matching up in design and/or font but I still enjoy seeing players on designs where they don't quite belong.  This year I was very happy to see Willie McCovey in the Topps Archive release and to have him featured on a card in the 1993 Topps design.  When the set came out and I saw his card for the first time, I was even happier as it didn't contain a photo that had been recycled dozens on times on card releases.  Here is the base McCovey:

I typical Topps fashion, any new release has to have a few parallels and outside of the 1/1, I have been able to pick up all the McCovey's:

The most common parallel is this purple border and my card is numbered 171/175.

Next up is the silver border and mine is numbered 20/99.

The last card in this group that I acquired was this blue bordered card which is numbered 16/25.

And the final parallel is the Topps Gold card reminiscent of the 1/pack parallels back in 1993.  This is unnumbered but I believe it is slightly more rare than the blue.

Here is the rainbow with the cards all together:

I was happy to see some new colors pop up this year in the parallels and I think they look pretty good on this throwback 1993 design.  Thank you Topps for honoring my favorite player.

McCovey Monday #97 - 1971 Mattel Mini-Records

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Today I decided to dig into the binders and share a couple items that I have had in my collection for quite some time.  One of the fun parts of collecting players that played prior to my birth are tracking down items that I never saw in the wild and the items I am showing today were produced in the year of my birth.

In 1971, Mattel put out a special mini-record player called "Mattel Show 'N Tell " that contained 2 1/2" plastic mini records that featured sports stars.  The checklist includes 18 baseball players, 10 basketball players, 17 football players and 8 hockey players.  Fortunately for my collection, Willie McCovey was included in the set.

 Here is the McCovey, it features a recording on one side and a color drawing of the player on the other. The picture appears on a paper disk that is glued onto the smooth unrecorded side of the mini-record. On the recorded side, the player's name and the set's subtitle appear in arcs stamped in the central portion of the mini-record.  It is a little hard to see but it is there.

There is a second version of each players that has pictures on both sides:

This is a more rare version but I am not sure by how much.  From a Beckett pricing standpoint, the black version is listed at $25 and the dual sided is $30.  The double sided discs are ivory instead of black and while the first side has the same photo, the second side has an awesome action photo of Willie Mac sliding into home plate.

McCovey Monday #96 - 2019 Immaculate Collection Dual Bat Relic 43/49

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Today I am showing off another 2019 release of Willie Mac.  I wasn't sure if his presence would increase or decrease after his passing last October and it seems that it is just about the same as the last few years.  Today I am showing off a relic from 2019 Immaculate Collection and there are even a few low numbered sticker autographs in the product, I suspect those will dry up soon.

Here is today's card:

This is a nice dual bat card from the Legends subset.  I  like the design of this care, the swooshes in the background fit nicely with the Giants color scheme and the gold foil looks good as well.  This is a common photo of McCovey but it fits well on the card front.  Obviously a nice orange SF on the cap would be better but I am passed the point of complaining about licensing, it impacts the sets I collect but not the players.

I don't always snap a pic or scan the back but this card had a couple nice surprises on the back so I thought I would share it.

First, it is claimed this is from an actual game-used material, in this case I assume a bat.  I can't be certain but it seems like there are more instances of things being "player-used or player-worn" material denotations so maybe there is a little bit of honesty on this portion of the hobby.

The best part of the back is the quote from McCovey.  This is a quote I hadn't heard and I have read a lot about McCovey and followed his career since the late 70s.  It is a pleasant surprise to see a new quote like this, and a cool one at that.  I read a ways back that McCovey was one of the few Hall of Famers who hadn't either written an autobiography or been the subject of a biography.  I am not sure how many there are today will the expansion of the Hall but I sure would love to see a bio on Stretch one of these days.

McCovey Monday #95 - 2019 Topps Tier One

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

I am posting a little later than I would like today.  I fly out tomorrow to Phoenix for work had hopes of putting together a weeks worth of posts this weekend but it was just too busy.  Had some fun (49ers vs. Chiefs football game), some kid fun (took the kids to the Kidz Bop concert) then filled the rest of the time with laundry and other household chores.  After this post I will try to get some pics uploaded and perhaps I will create some posts from the hotel room while I am gone.

Today I decided to show one of my newest Willie McCovey pickups:

I am happy to score this dual relic out of /25 from 2019 Topps Tier One.  Solid looking card although the pic is a little blurry.  I had bid on several and lost out on them but now this one pairs nicely with the one out of /175 I picked up around release time:

This pick up ends my quest for McCoveys in this set as the only 3 remaining cards I don't have are all 1/1s which I won't spend to acquire.

Last week I shared the start of my Ginter McCovey quest and I picked on one new card since that post:

I know can knock of the mini gold border off the want list, very happy to have this card.  The gold looks better on the scan than in person, a little too dark while in had.

I figured I would share the other card I got with the McCovey:

I also collect cards of Mr. October, another #44 uniform wearing player from my childhood.  There don't seem to be too many Reggie cards in his Angels uniform but I like seeing them as a change up.  His A's uni tops my list but still enjoy Yankee and Angels cards (the few Orioles cards look wrong to me).

McCovey Monday #94 - 2019 Allen and Ginter

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of almost 1400 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards on select Mondays.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

When I decided to start blogging again in the last couple weeks, I decided to take a different approach.  I think part of the reason I took a break was that it wasn't as much fun as it had been in the past and at the root of that was a shift in my goals around the blog.  When I started, it was to take part in the community and share the things I liked about my hobby.  Over time the number of comments and views started to drive my satisfaction level.  If I took a lot of time on a post or came up with what I thought was a particularly great idea that ended up with a low view count and no comments it bothered me.

I am not as creative or as talented of a writer as Night Owl.  I don't have tons of local card shows to attend and pick up cheap cardboard goodness on a budget like Dime Box.  My flea markets aren't loaded with tons of sports cards adn memorabilia like Fuji.  Those are some of the reasons that I enjoy their blogs and why I try to read them as often as possible.  As I reflected, I realized the fun for any blogger who does it for fun has to come from doing and sharing what you like in your blog.

Maybe my approach will come across as self-indulgent and maybe it is.  But, moving forward I just plan on sharing what feels right when I have some time to blog.  I am looking at this endeavor as a way to document my collecting journey and if anyone wants to go along on the journey with me that would be awesome.  I am definitely not trying to drive people away but I am not overly concerned about view counts.

If you have made it this far, you might wonder why these discussion points are leading off a McCovey Monday post.  This is my first McCovey Monday post in about 2 years and the primary reason I stopped posting about my favorite player collection was due to a lack of comments and page views whenever I posted one of these. I plan on starting them up again and will draw joy from sharing my McCovey cards - my new goal with blogging.

Today I am going to share the McCovey cards from one of the most recent Topps release that includes Willie Mac.

I was very happy to see McCovey included in this year's Allen & Ginter release.  The photo selection, the cropping of the picture and old stadium background make for a great card.  So far I have picked up the base card, the gold border parallel, the regular back mini and the Brooklyn back mini /25.  Super happy to track down the Brooklyn back.

I still have a ways to go with the card variations.  I don't realistically expect to pick up any of the 1/1s (there are 7 different 1/1s), the metal mini /3 or the X Mini Red /5.  So here is my want list for this year's McCovey Ginter set:

Ginter Greats insert
Mini A&G back
Mini Black Border
Mini Framed Cloth /10
Mini Gold Border
Mini No Number /50
Mini Stained Glass /25
Rip Card /50 (will take a ripped or unripped)
X base
X Mini

If you happened to pull any of these and are up for a trade drop me a note.  Look for some more McCovey Monday posts in the near future.

McCovey Stretch Drive Bobblehead

Last year my favorite player from my youth, Willie McCovey passed away.  I don't recall ever addressing it in this blog, in all honesty it was a little hard to deal with when a hero of my youth passed away.  I think there were some thoughts of me approaching the half century mark coupled with some health issues that my doctor sprung on me that made me struggle a bit.

Lately my attitude has started to shift.  I have sought out some old articles about McCovey from his playing days, had some good discussions with my dad about some games we went to when I was a kid and spending more time celebrating his career and enjoying the memories.  I have also had some success on the health related front which may have helped a bit too.

I was watching a Giants game on mlb.tv a little while back and there was an ad for the Junior Giants fund.  It is a charity in the San Francisco area to help kids play baseball.  They were reaching the end of this year's Stretch Drive, a movement that McCovey helped start, to fund raise.  Based on your donation amount, you could qualify for a gift.  The combination of the good cause and the prize had me online quickly to make my donation.

A couple days back, my gift arrived and I am very happy to add this bobblehead to my McCovey collection:

Here is the front view of the bobblehead out of the box.  I don't have a ton of bobblehead as I don't have tons of display room but this McCovey has a spot right on my desk for now.

Here is a view of the back with his name and famous #44 across the back:

On one side of the box, there is some more info about the charity this supports.

I know my dad has made an annual donation to the Stretch Drive and I think I will start that up in honor and memory of my favorite player.  Gift or not it is a great cause in support of the legacy of a great man.

A Nice eBay Pickup

Back from my second trip to Orlando in the past month and decided it was time to get a post or two up.  I decided that today I would go with the LIFO method (last in, first out) and share something I got in the mail yesterday.

I picked up a 4 card lot that I came across accidentally.  I still have an eBay search that shoots me daily emails of new 2018 Willie McCovey cards and I saw a posting with this title "Topps Inserts Sp Willie McCovey,Rickey Henderson,Hank Aaron,Ted Williams 2018."  I already have the McCovey SP parallel from last year's Topps but the picture is what piqued my interest:

I hadn't picked up this Henderson card for my Rickey collection so I decided to put in a bid.  The post listed 3 other HOF names but only showed two pictures:

I nice Hank Aaron insert but one I already had, and:

An SP parallel of Ted Williams.  I had seen this card a couple times and love the photo.  Teddy Ballgame is wearing his warm up jacket, practicing his swing in the dugout with what I think is Fenway Park in the background.  The big grin on his face makes the photo, looks like a guy who just loves the game.

The final card was a mystery as there was no photo but as expected the aforementioned card I already have in my McCovey collection ended up being the final card:

In the end I won these cards for $6 delivered.  As mentioned the Rickey was a need and I figure the McCovey can go in the Giants binder since I have one in my player collection.  I will probably see if the Hank can find a new home.  The Williams isn't going anywhere, I love the card.  Any time I run across one of the retired player parallels I keep a hold of it.  I have considered going back to when they started a few years back and collecting all of them but I really don't need another collection.

Overall I am really happy with the pickup and have to appreciate the crappy listing job of the seller.  I have to think if these were better listed the price would have been higher than a $2.26 sale price.  Have you ever picked up something on eBay that was listed poorly and resulted in a good deal?

San Diego Shopping

I just got back on Friday from a quick work trip to San Diego.  The perfect, sunny weather was a nice break from the winter misery going on in my neck of the woods.  Even better, I got into SD early on Wednesday morning and had some time to kill before my first meeting.  My first stop was Balboa Park to stretch my legs, get in some steps and soak up some son.  My second stop was Carl's Jr. to have my favorite fast food burger for lunch (no Carl's in Kansas).  My third stop, after a quick Yelp search was Clairemont Sports cards.

The shop was great. It wasn't too big and had an old school feel.  The wall on the right had some narrow shelves with baseball boxes, bobbleheads and other collectibles.  Below the narrow shelves were deeper shelves with 3200 count boxes neatly labeled by set starting with 1957 Topps up to some current day sets.  There was a line of display cases that also contained labeled boxes, some sorted by players and other by teams.  Across the entire top of the display cases were 2 types of boxes, 50 cent boxes with stars, inserts and parallels & dollar boxes with superstar cards sorted by players.

The left side of the store pretty much replicated the right but was split between football, basketball and hockey.  The front of the store had a few cases with singles while the back has some higher end cards, graded cards and other oddball items. 

At the front of the store sat a guy I assume was an owner sitting at a table with a Beckett Annual book pricing out some cards.  He was a super nice guy that I chatted with throughout my visit.  He shared some great stories of seeing games as far back as the 1950s and hit me with a trivia question he guessed I could never answer.  The question was Who was the first San Francisco Giant elected to the Hall of Fame.  Knowing the question had to be someone you don't initially associate with the Giants, I took a few minutes to think through and correctly answered Warren Spahn - he was impressed.

Shortly after I arrived a guy came in a dropped off a few boxes of late 80s/early 90s cards.  He had called ahead and was just giving them away.  They were his sons' collections and he wanted them out of the garage.  This shop takes donations like this, gives all the baseball and football cards to a guy who has a kids charity that accepts them.  The second shop guy, maybe a co-owner, started sorting through the cards and taking out the non-baseball/football cards.  He wasn't quite a chatty but still a cool guy.

I didn't have a ton of time and started on the Mays and McCovey dollar boxes.  I found a couple of Mays cards I needed:

I felt these were worth a buck a piece.  I was shocked and surprised to find two new McCovey cards that I had never even seen before:

These are two oddballs of McCovey featuring him with the Phoenix Giants.  The Holsum card is from 1993 and the Dream Team card is from 1997 and produced by Keebler and The Arizona Republic newspaper.  I probably would have paid 10X the amount for these, it is rare that I run across a McCovey card I didn't even know existed as I have been collecting his cards since the late 80s.

Here are the backs:

My final look was in the box of 1957 Topps.  He had some higher end stars and top condition cards and while my 2019 goal focus on $100+ cards, I was more interested in digging through the commons.  I was able to identify 54 cards I needed that hit my quality standards (no paper loss, no writing and no significantly noticeable creases).  Here is a look at the stack:

I actually bought 61 cards but 7 of the cards I accidentally got 2 of.  I handed the stack to the guy a little worried about what price he would quote as he didn't give me a concrete price when he handed me the box.  I was pleasantly surprised when he quoted me $60 for everything.

If you are ever in SD, especially if you are looking for some great guys and non-graded vintage, I would strongly recommend Clairemont Sportscards.  I will I had a couple of hours to hang around and dig through stuff.  I am kicking myself for not asking about more oddball McCovey stuff as the Padres like to claim him as their first HOF player.  My 1957 set build is coming along nicely, I am up to 134 of 407 cards if I count a few in my COMC account including a few of the higher end (but none of the extreme high end) cards.

Santa Sure Was Good To Me

I have decided to poke my head up out of hibernation for a post this evening.  What might you say awoke this sleeping bear after about a 3 month rest?  I got my Secret Santa goods today in the mail.

They might have been a day late but boy it was worth it.  I was lucky enough to draw friend of the blogging community and active twitter Bosox guy Mark Hoyle as my Secret Santa.  Apparently he sent a package to my old mailing address in CA.  He tried rerouting it and it is apparently sleeping somewhere in Kansas trying to find its way to me.  Mark, being the great guy that he is, got another package sent my way and it has to be the best backup gift I have ever received.

 The package contained a variety of Giants items from Gypsy Oak, according to Mark he is a friend of his named Jeff.  I believe I have seen a couple items posted in blogs or on twitter but this is the first time I have gotten a chance to hold any of his creations in my hands - Jeff is one talented dude!

I am going to go biggest to smallest in terms of what I show.  Check out this awesome Christy Mathewson piece.  It is patterned after a vintage Allen & Ginter card and printed on very heavy stock.  The crease and notches you see on the card were designed to feel authentic as well. This is an amazing piece.

 The back is even done up nicely with a sticker and stamp along with some art work.  I placed this standard card sized Willie Mays net to it to show off the Mays and to give you some perspective on the size.  The Mays is great looking as well.

 Next up are a pair of post card sized photos of Mel Ott and Willie Mays.   These really show off the artistic style of Gypsy Oak and are both beautiful pieces.

I also scored a pair of tobacco card replicas of Bugs Raymond and Roger Brenahan.  These are also a very nice design with perforated edges and nice crisp colors.

The final items are this foursome of Giants HOF greats, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Christy Mathewson.  These are little minis, maybe half the size of the tobacco cards.  There is a perforation in the middle, you can bend them in half if you would like.  I have already paged these up and gotten all these into my vintage Giants binder but had to break up the set a bit.  The Willie Mac made its way into the player collection binder.

Mark, thank you for the amazing gift and the effort to get it to me with the mailing mix up.  If memory serves me correctly, I gifted you last year in the Secret Santa and I think you one upped me this year.  I will have to make it up one of these days.

As for my blogging future, I suspect I may be doing posts more frequent than quarterly but my days of trying to blog daily (never really reached that for a consistent period anyone) are probably behind me.  It is a variety of factors including a job where I have to be in the office every day (used to work at home 1-3 days/week before moving to Kansas), the kids getting older and more demanding (not bad just takes away from "free" hobby time), a large hobby purchase I made that is taking forever to go through (hope to share real soon and probably the primary source of the 3 month break) and a focus on trying to get healthier as I approach the big 5 - 0 (trying to get up early to go the gym each day which requires me to go to bed earlier, hence less hobby time).

I still love the hobby, still love our blogging community, still appreciate the kindness and generosity of all of you.  I know I don't owe you an explanation and heck most of you probably don't even care but just thought I would include an update and hopefully you will see a few more posts in the not too distant future.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!