i don't always shop at the beckett marketplace, but when i do, i shop for obscure steve garvey cards

there are many options for obtaining cards these days that obviously weren't available to me as a budding collector in 1978. aside from buying packs, trading was the first way i was able to obtain specific cards that i wanted for my collection back then. once i had made a few trades with the neighborhood kids, i was introduced to the local card shop and immediately had access to a greater number of cards. after that, my dad took me to a few card shows in the greater los angeles area, which i am nearly positive included the first national convention in 1980.

the conventions, along with the card shops and even retail outlets like target and sam's club, continued to feed my collection until i found out about ebay in 1999. since then, most of my purchases have come from the auction site, although recently i've been doing more sportlots. i have also made purchases from comc and justcommons, but not as frequently.

maybe once a year, i will also buy cards from the beckett marketplace. the downside to the beckett marketplace is similar to that of sportlots - cards are shipped from individual owners rather than a central location so costs add up quickly, especially since there is not the budget shipping option that sportlots offers. so, unless i can't find what i am looking for elsewhere, i usually steer clear of beckett.
well, i had been on the lookout for a reasonably priced 1987 bohemian hearth steve garvey card for quite a while. ebay search results would alert me to one every so often, but there was always a highly set minimum bid, so i passed. when i searched beckett sometime in the latter half of last year, there were a couple hits, including one for a pretty reasonable price, so i jumped.

i'm glad i did. these were inserted in to loaves of bread in the san diego area in 1987. here's the back

that's a lot of bread to buy if you're looking for the complete 22 card set.  i wonder (no pun intended) if you could tell which card was in a loaf, and if so, were shelves left full of storm davis loaves?

another garvey item i figured i wouldn't ever find was listed in the official beckett steve garvey checklist as '1989 padres magazine #20 steve garvey/home run ties nlcs'. i had no idea what this was. was it a card? a magazine cover? besides, who keeps old padres magazines? i had poked around a few card shops in the san diego area in the early 90's looking for garvey stuff, but never had any luck with either the bohemian bread or the magazine thing, mostly because i didn't know that they even existed at that time. anyway, i saw one for sale for the first time during that same visit to beckett.

it made sense once i saw the thing in person that it was a card from a perforated panel, and not a magazine cover.

i guess these cards were inserted as an incentive for you to buy the magazine, as the back of garvey's card

notes that it comes from series no. 5.

some rarer garvey cards still show up on ebay from time to time, and i recently added a couple to my collection. this is a 1986 cunningham card

that doesn't even show up on the beckett checklist. it's a broder type card that served, as far as i can tell, as an advertisement for scott cunningham photography. the photos used for these cards could also be purchased from the photographer in 8x10 format. 

another recent ebay acquisition was this 2008 donruss threads garvey century collection relic card. 

the photo says 'dodgers' but the jersey piece says 'padres'. at least it's from one of his fantastically nasty padre jerseys that featured yellow (i don't think it's from one of the primarily yellow bp jerseys based on the material) and not one that had the boring brown pinstripes. 

further exploring my avenues for obtaining steve garvey cards, this is a 1986 meadow gold blank back card that i purchased from checkoutmycards. 

i had not seen one before i ran across it on comc. there is another 1986 meadow gold garvey card that has stats on the back, but this one looks like it was cut from a box. in fact, the ones with the stats on the back were issued in panels inside specially marked boxes of meadow gold popsicles and fudgesicles, while the blank backs were indeed cut from ice cream cartons. 

as i mentioned earlier, sportlots has been my primary source lately for cards - mostly double plays and parallels - and once in a while i'll find a garvey or two that i didn't already have. case in point, this 2005 donruss team heroes showdown silver parallel 

and this 2005 donruss greats silver parallel 

were somehow previously missing from my collection, which is odd because i was hitting ebay pretty hard for garvey stuff in 2004 and 2005. both cards use the same photo, and both are one of many parallels donruss put out that year. in addition to silver, there are red, blue, gold, and bronze versions of the team heroes card, and gold and platinum version of the greats card. i have most of the other parallels, but not all, so if you see a gold version of the greats card (numbered to 10), please let me know. 

last, but certainly not least, is a card that i'd been thinking about for a while. i have a complete dodger set of the 2005 baseball hero deck playing cards, but wanted a garvey single for my garvey binders. thanks to a seller on beckett, i found one pretty cheaply. 

3 of hearts? makes sense for the garv. 

sometimes i wish there were a card website aggregator that would let me know what's for sale where, but that's just lazy talk. i'm afraid i just need to keep a closer eye on the beckett marketplace if i'm ever to find a 1989 michigan state pepsi garvey card...