A Big Oddball Purchase

I little while back I was surfing eBay and ran across a Rickey Henderson card that I had been searching for for years, probably back to the late 80s when I started collecting him.  As I tend to do I looked to see if the seller had combined shipping and when I saw that he did, I did a little search.  Lucky for me he had the team name listed in the title - there is nothing better for a team collector. 

I went a little wild, he had so many different oddballs that I wanted that I had a hard time stopping.  I ended up with over 30 cards that I thought I would share.

These are super cool and actually cards I had never seen before.  I had bought and traded for some that were similar but not these that have the red border and big bubbled card number in the upper right corner.  One great thing about my team having such a long and illustrious history is that quite a few Great Feats have occurred throughout their history.

I am a HUGE fan of the small box sets put out by Fleer in the late 80s/early 90s.  I actually thought I had most of these and was surprised how many I found on this spending spree.  I will continue to keep my eyes open and suspect there may be a 2014 collecting goal surrounding these issues if my sets aren't complete by year end.

This is a random assortment.  The Mitchell and Williams HR Derby cards were some I had never seen.  The Swell set Mays wasn't on my team checklist even though I had other cards from the set on it, kind of odd.  I always like to score cards that aren't on my checklist.  Poor Mike Krukow, he sure isn't photogenic, this picture on the BK card and the one above are not very flattering.  I couldn't believe I didn't have the Jack Clark Kelloggs in my collection and glad I was able to pick it up.

This trio comes from more recent releases with 2 blue parallels from 2012 Panini Cooperstown and a red refractor of 2007 Topps Chrome.  The red doesn't look too great for the Giants but suspect would look spectacular with a team like the Reds.

Here is a group of Topps cards from some random sets.  The Mel Ott photos is classic, amazing he hit over 500 HRs with that high leg kick. Both the Mays and Robby Thompson are cards I would have sworn I already had but they weren't on my checklist or in the Giants binder.  The Monte Irvin All Time Fan Favorites was one of the last cards I needed to complete one of my 2013 collecting goals.

And the card that started it all, a 1983 Permagraphics Super Star of Rickey Henderson.  I had the gold parallel of this card but had not been able to find a reasonably priced one for my collection in over 20 years of searching.  I was one of the oldest Rickey's I needed and I was happy to scoop it up.

I haven't gone back to do any searches from this seller but do have him bookmarked as a favorite.  I am a little scared because I tend to lack some self control when it comes to non-standard issue cards.  Maybe next month I will try to set aside some of the budget to see what else I can find.

Mail Day - The Joys of Combined Shipping

I really like to take advantage of combined shipping on eBay. It is tough for me to pay $3 to ship one card but when you can get a decent stack for $3-5 it makes it much more palatable.  I ran across a single card I really wanted from a seller recently and did some searching in his inventory and picked up a pretty nice stack of cards.

 First up is this nice card featuring two HOF Giants, Johnny Mize and Mel Ott, although Mize is in a Yankee uniform.  This is from the Rival Factions insert set and is numbered 0309/1000.  This is kind of an interesting choice of players as Mize and Ott were teammates during the last couple years of Ott's career and Mize didn't play on the Yankees until after Ott was retired.  Regardless, I like the card and the Ott picture is pretty cool featuring the Giants across his chest.

 A couple of cards from my favorite Giants 3B of all time, Matt Williams.  Although the bottom card doesn't look it, these are both gold. I love the photography in the Collector's Choice set, for a low end set, Upper Deck sure did it right.  Williams is stretching out to snag a grounder and in the Flair insert he is honored for his Hot Glove.

Speaking of Collector's Choice and great photography, I was able to pick up 7 Gold Signature parallels from the 1996 set.  I was surprised to find these all with one seller as I thought the Gold Sigs were pretty tough pulls.  The photography on these is great, particularly the 4 horizontal cards. One day I am going to have to pull a bunch of Kirt Manwarings cards for a post, the man has some great looking cards - gotta love catchers.

 I also scored 3 Barry Bonds cards.  I am tempted to peel the Finest insert but the coating has been in place for 14 years so I am not sure I can actually pull the trigger. I am sure it would look much Finer in a peeled state.  The UD Ionix insert looks great in person and actually scanned better than I suspected. The final card is an SPx Radiance parallel from 1998.  I really like these cards but there are somewhat hard to come by.  This one is serial numbered to 1000. I knew these cards held high book values from my days of trading on the forums so I looked this one up - $50!  That is crazy for a card /1000.  I am happy to add it to my collection.

The final card is the only non-Giant and the card that started it all. I don't know if I had even seen this card but I needed it for my Rickey Henderson collection.  When marking it off my checklist I noticed that I only need 3 more cards of his that were released in 1993.  The only years I have all his cards are 1979 and 1980 where he had only 1 card in each year and 1983 - with 40 cards.  Adding those final 3 cards might be a fun side goal, there are a total of 51 of his cards in 1993.

I was pretty happy with this package, thank goodness for combined shipping to allow me to put together packages like this.

Trade Post - Reader Jim - mrhaverkamp

During my move I neglected to post quite a few packages that I received from fellow collectors and over time I hope to remedy that to show my appreciation.  The first such package I want to share was from fellow Giant fan and reader of the blog Jim aka mrhaverkamp.  Jim is super generous and always fills some big holes in my Giants collection.  This time he also helped out on some sets I am working on.

Usually I save the best for last but not this time.  If you recall from several months back I bought a box of series 2 Conlon collection cards and started doing a pack by pack reveal on this blog.  I think I stopped somewhere around 6 packs and will pick it up again in the near future. These cards showcase amazing photography of players from the past and some great info on the backs.  Jim was able to send me a ton of Giants to fill out some of the other series. I would normally just pick my favorite few but I think the photography is so great I decided to scan them all.  Enjoy:

Pretty cool, huh?  Anyone who enjoys the history of the game has got to appreciate that set.

Next up a trio of Kelloggs cards:

I actually don't think the first one is a Kelloggs card but it is close.  I really need to go through my checklist and finish up these sets. They bring back tons of childhood memories.  I do believe I have a set or two I mail ordered when I was a kid somewhere around here.

Next up are a dozen 1970 Topps cards. My goal this year was to get the set complete through card #459. I will probably share an update on that quest in the not too distant future.

It was cool to score two League Leaders cards and some other nice cards. I like that the short lived Pilots have cards in this set.

And the final 5 cards:

The last cards were some Turkey Red Giants, I am trying to complete the entire run of Turkey Red Giants and with these I am two Barry Bonds SPs away from making that a reality.  I also scored the Marichal variation checklist and two inserts from last year's Ginter.  For some reason I decided to collect all regular sized insert sets and this one has proven elusive. With these two I am now within a dozen cards of finishing off the set.

Jim, thanks for the great package and sorry the post took too long.  I am hoping the Giants bounce back next year and we have more joyous topics to talk about next year around this time!

McCovey Monday #38 - 2013 Panini Cooperstown

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1100 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

For the second year in a row, Panini has released a Cooperstown set utilizing their HOF license.  The set is one of my favorites and for the second year in a row I am building the set and many of the insert sets.  I plan on a post in the next week or two going over the entire product and my status on the set completion.

In the meantime, I thought I would share the Willie McCovey cards I have picked up so far towards my McCovey set.  I haven't picked up an extra base card yet but have picked up 3 parallels:

 This is the green parallel and is unnumbered.

 This blue parallel is numbered 059/499.

 The red parallel is numbered 389/399.

Finally this is a Colgan's disc.  These are inserted 1 per pack and have a checklist of 165 cards.  I kind of like them but the size of the set is going to prevent me from going after it. They measure about 2 1/4" in diameter.

Decent start to but I still have some work to do.  Here is what I still need:

Base card
Gold Parallel /299
Matrix Parallel /325
Blue Pennant insert
Red Pennant insert

There is also a Black Crystal parallel numbered 1/1 and two autograph cards, one numbered to /40 the other to /10.  I am guessing these will all be out of our range.  I may be able to get lucky with the auto /40 but I haven't seen too many pop up and for whatever reason McCovey's autos have been escalating in price.

2013 Collection Goal Update - 1965 Topps Giants Team Set

One of my goals in 2013 is to complete 5 of the 10 Topps Giants team sets from the 1960s. If you followed my Top 20 countdown a few months back you may have seen that I made some progress with some of the higher end cards from the 60s but unfortunately there are still quite a few high dollar cards left.

I had already completed the 1969 set and can now mark another one off the list.  The 1965 Topps set is one of my favorites from the decade.  I really like the big pennant across the front and the color scheme for the Giants works pretty well.  These first 3 I actually picked up late last year but I don't believe I ever showcased them on the blog.

I really like the large Rookie trophy on the front of the Hal Lanier card, glad the Giants had one of the top rookies so I have one in my team set. Giants Manager Herman Franks looks pretty happy in his photo, he was hired to replace the fired Alvin Dark for the 1965 season, so maybe that had something to do with it.  Franks lead the Giants to 4 2nd place finished in his 4 years with the club.  I remember Jim Davenport as a third baseman but this card lists him as a SS-2B.  Looks like he played a utility role in 1964 with Jimmy Ray Hart as the starting 3B.

For quite some time my 1965 Topps Giants want list consisted of only 1 card but I received this beauty shortly before my move:

This is one of my favorite Mays cards ever, I really like the dual bats, the stadium background and again the 1965 design is one of my favorites.  Very happy to pick this up.  Interested in how the team set looks all together:

A mighty fine looking team set in my opinion.  Wonder which 1960s set I can knock off next?

More Reject Pile Goodness

As I shared recently, I was able to pick up a decent chunk of the 1968 Topps Game insert set out of the reject pile at my LCS.  Most of the cards I picked up were the lesser players, basically most of the commons from the set.  I had pretty much decided to build the set but my trip the following week to the LCS solidified the pursuit.  I was able to pick up 9 more cards towards the 33 card set and this time the names were a little more famous and the players a lot more accomplished.  Here they are:

 Tommy Davis and Joe Torre are the only 2 players in this purchase that aren't HOFers and I would suspect Mr. Torre will make it as a manager quite soon.

 Here are a couple of pretty accomplished infielders.  I was surprised to see that Killebrew played almost as much 3B as he did 1B in his career.  For some reason he just seems like a 1B to me.

 Here are a couple of HOF outfielders, both spent time at 1B but are primarily known for their outfield prowess.

 The Robinson Bros from Baltimore both appear in this set and were part of this recent purchase.  The Frank is miscut quite a bit but if you look at the scans you will see that I am not super concerned about the condition of this set.

Finally the best pick up in my opinion. None other than Mr. 755 Hank Aaron.  During my recent trip to the Baseball HOF in Cooperstown I was able to go through the newer section of the museum dedicated to Mr. Aaron.  The display was under construction during my trip a couple years back and I was really happy to be able to enjoy it.

I am pretty happy with the progress on this set with 27 of the 33 cards.  The best part about this 9 card purchase from the reject pile?  The cards only cost me $3.25!  I have a want list for this set on my Set Want List Tab if you happen to have any for trade - I am working on a trade for a Mays right now.

Picking Up Some HOF Vintage

I couple posts ago I shared some finds from my LCS that I scored from the reject pile. The same LCS with that pile also has some nice bid board cards that I have been picking up. One of my targets has been vintage cards of HOFers.  I collect just about anything including an attempt to corral as many HOF Autograph cards as possible but this is an area that is fairly new to me.  I love baseball history and the cards are usually well priced so I am drawn to them.

With my set collecting, team collecting of the Giants and USC Football, and my numerous player collections there really isn't room to start a new side collection but I am going to continue to pick them up when the price is right. 

Here is a few that I have picked up over the last few weeks:

First up is a 1977 George Brett. This is about the most recent set I have been looking to pick up. I started collecting in 1979 but in the early 80s bought a 1978 vending box and built a set so this is really the newest set that pre-dates my collecting youth.  I have a few 70s sets but for some reason this set is my starting point when I think about picking up "vintage" cards.  Mr. 0.390 set me back $1.

This 1969 Joe Morgan was actually a reject pile purchase for a quarter.  As you can see it has a pretty significant crease and isn't in the best condition but I couldn't pass it up at that price.

 I already had this Gaylord Perry in my collection from 1968 but couldn't pass up another copy for $1.

This Frank Robinson set me back $3.  It is a little off center but overall in pretty nice space. It amazes me how different the borders are between cards in this set.  For s's and giggles I looked up the book value of this card and it is $30 - What a Bargain!

 This is the first of a quad of 1967 Topps cards.  This one features HOFer Lou Brock and the man credited my many for starting the fight for free agency Curt Flood. I have a move about Flood on my DVR and a book about him to read.  This card set me back $2.  I have been tempted many times through the years to go after all the vintage combo cards but never pulled the trigger.

 This very nice conditioned knucklerballer and former Giant Hoyt Wilhelm was $3. Kinda wish he was showcasing his knuckle grip.

 This Catfish Hunter was also $3.  I have several of his vintage cards. I am not sure why I am so drawn to him, might have something to do with the awesome A's uniforms.

The last of the 1967s is this Eddie Mathews card.  The Astros team name just looks wrong for this longtime Brave.  If I recall, his 500th HR came as a member of the Astros.  Again another $3 HOFer.

This final card to me was a very exciting find:

This is a 1957 Topps Robin Roberts. This card is in pretty nice shape and this is one of my favorite vintage sets.  This is another card that books for $30 and I picked it up for $5.

There was a lot of hassle, cost and frustration with the move but the combination of the swimming pool, a fairly enjoyable new job and a couple great LCSs has softened the blow.