read any good books lately?

how's that winter reading list coming along?  personally, i've yet to finish a book this year, but i'm working on 'east of eden'.  i took a break from some steinbeck goodness to pick up a couple other books recently.  here's the cover of one of them.

that's a 2013 panini america's pastime 'hitters ink' book, numbered to 25.  it only has two pages, and it's a picture book to boot.

so, this is my first tony gwynn auto.  it's nice to see garvey paired with mr. padre.  he's previously been featured on relic cards with ozzie smith in the brown and mustard, and with gwynn, willie mccovey, and rickey henderson, too.  i just hadn't seen an auto pairing between these two, who have 5,740 hits between them.

here is the back of the book (and the binding and front)

the other book i picked up was also a quick read.

it comes from 2009 topps sterling, and is a 'seasons' auto-relic card of steve garvey as a dodger, numbered to 10. you can tell from the back of the book that the 'season' being celebrated here is garvey's 1978 campaign. it's even more clear inside.

the book came at a steep price, but anytime '1978' and 'steve garvey' are put together, i'll probably make it happen for my collection.  now, this card/book was advertised as a patch card, but in reality the jersey pieces used come from a dodger away jersey that had the blue and white striping on the sleeves.  just like the one he is wearing in the photo used for this 2003 upper deck sp authentic dodger stars chirography auto card

the seller of the book/card noted that he had some other limited run garvey cards available.  i inquired and picked up a few, including two versions of the chirography card.  that first one is the 'base' (numbered to 320), and this one is the 'bronze' (numbered to 100)

it has the inscription 'dodgers', and the lower print run versions have different inscriptions such as '1981 ws champs'.  i already had those two cards, but they're in the garvey binder and i wanted duplicates to put with the other dodgers featured in the set.

i did pick up from the seller a few other auto cards that were new to my collection, however.  here's a 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams legendary combo triple signatures card featuring garvey, dusty baker, and ron cey

and here's one from the same set (although just a combo dual signatures card) featuring the penguin and garvey

the triple auto card has a reported print run of 50, while 150 copies of the dual were produced.  i already have the garvey/davey lopes dual, but there are some other dodgers (like don sutton and tommy john) that have eluded me.

speaking of sutton, he's on the next card i picked up.  it's a 2006 upper deck ultimate signatures card numbered to 25.

and there we have 4 of the starting 9 from the team of my youth.  fantastic.

the last card is kind of a letdown.  it's from the no photo sticker auto dump that was 2012 upper deck sp signature edition

i have a dodger quad signature from the set, but i didn't have the supposedly easier to obtain garvey solo card.  go figure.  i'm not sure why this particular garvey collector was moving his collection, but i was happy to have the opportunity to add some of the lower print run cards to my collection.

now i need to get back to seeing how things are going for adam trask and family in salinas...