One Project Closes, Another One Opens Right Up

With the arrival of the morning mail, today my Topps Heritage San Francisco Giants team set project has been completed. I dropped some big (for me) $$ on two Barry Bonds cards from 2002 and 2003 Heritage - $12 and $9, respectively - and another base card (Jeff Clark - who??) just arrived from a Canadian eBay seller. That's it. I did it. I now have every Giants Heritage card created from the start of the series in 2001 through today. 

This was accomplished by focusing on the base cards only. The inserts - mostly Chromes - are great, and I have a few of those, and perhaps in time I'll collect all of those, too. I will say that arranging the Heritage team sets in binders scratches some ultra-nerd primal itch, and they look fantastic together.

So now I'm onto a new goal: collect the complete Allen & Ginter San Francisco Giants team sets, from the start of the A&G series in 2006 through this past year, 2020. Oh sure, I know what some of you think about the Allen & Ginter stuff. I have some strong opinions on baseball cards myself. Yet I really enjoy the A&G olde-tyme look - the hand-painted images, the thick/sharp card stock, and the ancient fonts. Figured that these would all look really good together in a binder as well, and decided to challenge myself to put them together.

The rule on this one is similar but a little looser. Yes, I need to grab all of the Giants base cards, but also the more common Giants-related inserts: the "Longball Lore"s; the "Day to Remember"s; the "Baseball Legends" etc. There's almost always a McCovey and a Mays in every year's set, maybe a Marichal or a Cepeda, too. I need to get those before I can consider it complete. New York Giants count, too.

What doesn't count are minis, autographs, relics, and stuff that's so impossible to find that I'd just drive myself crazy and bankrupt trying to track it down. So: Allen & Ginter base cards and the more common extras, no minis. That's it. 

What you're looking at here is a complete 2016 SF Giants Allen & Ginter team set. What's not to love? I've also got 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 nailed - and nothing before 2015. Should be fun. 

What's On Your Tombstone?

Got this great 1994 Tombstone Pizza set - all but one of the 30 cards - from trading pal Dave S in California. It was put out by Score in conjunction with the pizza chain Tombstone, a place that I know is out there somewhere near me - or used to be - but that I've yet to patronize. I remember a radio ad that ended with "What's on your Tombstone?". For me, that'd be mushrooms, sausage and olives. (**see comments below, but Trevor reminded me that Tombstone is/was NOT a pizza chain, but a brand of frozen pizza).

They cobbled together 30 of the MLB's bigger stars in 1993-94 and made a great 30-card set giveaway, each individual card in a plain white wrapper. My assumption is that you needed to get quite a few pizzas going to get the whole set, but thanks to Dave, I'm 29/30ths of the way there.

I very much enjoy food-issued cards and am willing to take a bit of a backstep away from my "no junk wax-era cards" stance to enjoy this set from Tombstone. 

Here are some of the sluggers and hurlers in the set!

Nate Colbert, Early Padres Dude

Long before Trevor Hoffman, before Tony Gwynn, even before Randy Jones, there was Nate Colbert - the first San Diego Padres "star", and pretty much the first Padre to be recognized on more than just his one de rigeur Topps baseball card each year. He made all-star teams; he hit home runs; he gave San Diego someone to cheer for during 1969 and first half of the 70s.

He's also a player I collect. A little easier than some modern players, for sure, but one thing that's very sobering is to go onto the Trading Card Database (i.e. tcdb.com), look up a player whom you "thought" you had all the cards for, and then realize you're not even close. Well, I'm a little closer with Colbert now. Spent a bit of time on online sites trying to pick up a few that I didn't have recently, and grabbed these 5 - including the Milton Bradley game card thing to your left.

According to my research, there are 11 normally-sized (I hate odd-sized) Nate Colbert cards I don't yet have, and they're on this player want list here. Please let me know if you've got extras of any of these sitting around, not doing you much good...!

Mid-Week Show and Tell

Today we shall be looking at scans of baseball cards - how does that sounds, folks? Just like every other post! This time it's new arrivals at Card Hemorrhage headquarters. Sources are varied; prices paid ranged from $7 for the Johnny Antonelli card you see to your left, to small amounts of shekels to nothing at all (aka trades). 

Antonelli is a player I collect because he was my father's favorite player when he was growing up, particularly when Antonelli pitched for the New York, later San Francisco, Giants. He's not too difficult to collect given his lack of fame, despite his excellent career - and because he played in a era in which he'd get one, maybe two cards a year, and then a few sprinkled regional/food-issued cards. This one is a 1953 Johnston Cookies Card from when Antonelli was on the Milwaukee Braves. Johnston Cookies made a 25-card set of that year's Braves. One of them is a Warren Spahn. The following year, Johnston made another Braves set - this time with a Hank Aaron. 

I recently gathered that there's something called a "Topps Living" set that's an online-only order thing that Topps does. They do a bunch of this kind of malarky these days, and why not, right? People like me are ready and willing to plunk down a few dollars for our guys, like this new Jo Adell card that just arrived in the mail yesterday.

I executed a trade with a great American named Bert this past week. He runs Swing and a Pop-Up blog - bookmark it! He sent me some of the coolest regional and/or food-issued cards I've ever seen: oddballs all the way through. There's this TCMA "The 1960s" Boston Red Sox set I didn't have the energy to scan, but I will one of these days. But check out some of these goofballs:

The Mickey Rivers card is a 1978 SSPC, which is a set I need to learn some more about. I watched those 1977 playoffs and World Series as a kid, and remember Rivers' heroics. I was out doing some door-to-door thing with my Cub Scout troop the night Reggie Jackson hit those three homers in the '77 Series, but every dad in our Sacramento neighborhood had the TV on, so I got to see two of them live.

One of my most regular trading partners is Ken in Missouri. He sent me some great 1974 KC Royals. Fernando Gonzalez looks like he's just been whapped over the head with a 2x4, or he just got the news he was traded to the '74 Kansas City Royals, who would go 77-85 that year. And check out the form on "Sweet" Lou Piniella!

A new trading partner, Oren, was kind enough to send me a ton of prospect cards - the kids who didn't pan out, like Brian Stavisky, whose autograph I now have. Thank you, Oren!

I also went out and bid on a Seth Corry signed prospect card on eBay, in anticipation of him pitching like Cy Young when he gets called up to my San Francisco Giants in a couple of years:

Here are the remainder of our show and tell items for this Wednesday. I shall let the cards themselves do the talking and will keep my yap shut for a change.

First 2021s Have Arrived

Took the family down to Santa Barbara, CA this weekend for the first true vacation we've had since 2019. Lots of eating in the Airbnb apartment; walking, hiking and a little bit of socially-distanced shopping. 'Twas whilst doing the latter that I stumbled upon a comics/games/cards store just off of State Street that happened to have 2021 Topps Series 1 in stock - and what do you know, I bought three packs!

I wasn't necessarily looking for any "major gains" with this buy - and I didn't really get any - just hoping for some fun pack ripping. I didn't get any autographs nor parallels, unless that silver Shane Bieber you see below counts as a parallel (it might; I haven't done my research). But I did grab a few dudes. I got a Tatis. That made me happy. I got my guy Jo Adell. That made me even happier. I grabbed a couple of San Francisco Giants. I got both Luis Patino and Blake Snell, who were essentially traded for each other just a few weeks ago.

I got a Rickey Henderson buyback insert card. There were some journeymen that went straight into the trade box. There were some other guys. Hey, it was only three packs. But let me say this - like Nick at Dime Boxes, I'm really excited that these have borders; perhaps that's why they're the first Topps flagship design I've enjoyed in years. Also, like Nick, I don't like how tough it is to read the player's name.....but overall, I dig this design. I'm not going to collect it or anything, but it is absolutely passable. Extra points for advanced sabermetric stats on the back of the cards.

Here are a few of the other ringers that I rung up.