the hits keep coming in the steve garvey binders

we're up to sheet 55 in the steve garvey binders, and we're firmly entrenched in 2005.  have a look:

those cards are:

1. 2005 donruss greats (i think)
2. 2005 donruss greats platinum holofoil /50
3. 2005 donruss greats gold holofoil auto (print run 250)
4. 2005 donruss greats souvenirs
5. 2005 donruss greats souvenirs material bat relic
6. 2005 donruss greats souvenirs signature material bat relic/auto
7. 2005 donruss greats souvenirs signature material jersey relic/auto
8. 2005 donruss leather & lumber hitters inc. silver /200
9. 2005 donruss leather & lumber hitters inc. /2000

the reason that i am not sure about the donruss greats base card is that there is also a non-serial numbered holofoil parallel, and the scan of what i thought was the base seems to look like holofoil. i've ordered a base card from sportlots, and if they've cataloged that card correctly, i'll be able to compare the two in the next few days.

here are the backs:

donruss really went crazy with garvey cards in 2005, and the fun continues on sheet 56:

those cards are:

1. 2005 donruss leather & lumber hitters inc. bat relic /100
2. 2005 donruss leather & lumber hitters inc. jersey relic /100
3. 2005 donruss signature series signature club auto bat relic
4. 2005 donruss signature series inkredible combos (with don sutton)
5. 2005 donruss studio heritage /1000
6. 2005 donruss studio heritage die-cut /200
7. 2005 donruss studio heritage die-cut gold /50
8. 2005 donruss studio heritage jersey /250
9. 2005 donruss studio heritage bat relic /150

another combo auto with garvey's clubhouse scrapping partner, don sutton.  one studio die-cut is ok, but was there really a need for a gold die-cut parallel?  the answer is no, but i made room for it in the collection because it's got garvey's name and photo on it.

here are the backs:

sheet 57 features even more donruss parallel madness:

those cards are:

1. 2005 donruss studio portraits zenith white /70
2. 2005 donruss studio portraits red /50
3. 2005 donruss studio portraits blue black & white /40
4. 2005 donruss team heroes
5. 2005 donruss team heroes showdown blue parallel
6. 2005 donruss team heroes showdown red parallel
7. 2005 donruss team heroes showdown silver parallel /50
8. 2005 donruss throwback threads
9. 2005 donruss throwback threads century stars spectrum /100

so, there are 56 different versions of garvey cards in the studio portraits release, ranging in print runs from 5 to 70. i've got three. i'm also missing the bronze and gold showdown parallels from the team heroes set, and all four of the memorabilia cards from the throwback threads set.

here are the backs:

sheet 58 has some pretty decent jersey/patch relics: 

those cards are:

1. 2005 donruss timeless treasures milestone materials jersey relic (yellow) /10
2. 2005 donruss timeless treasures milestone materials jersey relic (brown) /10
3. 2005 donruss timeless treasures rookie year materials prime jersey relic /5
4. 2005 leaf certified materials fabric of the game stats jersey relic /25
5. 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia
6. 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia heroes /250
7. 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia heroes swatch double spectrum prime relic /25
8. 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia heroes swatch triple spectrum prime relic /15
9. 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia heroes team quads swatch single padres relic (with willie mccovey, tony gwynn, and rickey henderson) /100

the first two cards represent 20% of the milestone materials print run - i just wanted one of each color - and one of the cards happens to be the 6/10 card. yay.

here are the backs:

what i show as the back for the team quad is really the front, but garvey's side gets to be the front in the binder.  lots more cool stuff to come as 2005 continues - stay tuned...

pennys (and other dodgers) from bob walk the plank

brad penny cards are not quite like bad pennies - they don't show up everywhere - but when they do show up in a trade package, i am thankful.  matthew from bob walk the plank recently sent some cards my way, and there were two brad pennys in the package.

2005 leaf century collection brad penny auto

and 2005 upper deck mlb artifacts brad penny relic

penny was a two-time all-star while with the dodgers, winning 16 games in both 2006 and 2007. he is the most recent dodger pitcher to start the all-star game, although that might change this year if greinke gets the nod.

penny was teammates with kaz ishii for a short time in 2004.  then, after just three seasons with the dodgers, ishii was traded to the mets prior to the 2005 season. however, the residue of nomomania meant that there was a glut of ishii cards on the market. matthew sent me a couple

2004 playoff prestige kaz ishii relic

2004 topps clubhouse collection kax ishii relic

for some reason i thought that the ishii relic from clubhouse collection was short printed, but i don't see that assumption validated anywhere.  at any rate, this relic is new to my collection.

matthew sent me my first certified john candelaria as a dodger auto card last time we traded, and now he has sent me my second.

2014 leaf memories 1991 leaf buyback john candelaria auto

and, going for three lefty dodger pitchers in a row, here's a 2005 donruss greats tommy lasorda relic card

donruss ripped off fleer with their greats of the game/dodger blues relic set, but i am not upset by it.  tommy is shown, of course, as the manager of the los angeles dodgers, but donruss also issued a card in this set with the die-cut relic reveal in the shape of the brooklyn 'b' in honor of his (short) stint as a pitcher for the bums.  they used the same photo, however.

the relic set also included burleigh grimes, sandy koufax, duke snider, don sutton, and orel hershiser - matthew sent the bulldog's card

like lasorda, i believe that koufax and snider each have brooklyn and los angeles versions of their cards.

not all of the cards matthew sent were autos or relics. no, there were also serial numbered die-cuts, like this 2003 donruss elite adrian beltre aspirations card

and there was a gold parallel insert - this 1998 donruss studo mike piazza studio proofs gold card

all of the cards were happily accepted and appreciated.  thanks matthew - i will have some cards out to you soon!

big d, pee wee, and other dodger autographs

i don't know how realistic it is of me to think that i might one day have a jackie robinson and a roy campanella autographed card, but those are the only two current members of the dodger retired number club for whom i lack signed cards.  i've shown tommy lasorda, duke snider, jim gilliam, don sutton, walt alston, and sandy koufax signed cards previously, and now, i have a 1993 nabisco don drysdale certified auto card

and a 1991 topps archives 1953 pee wee reese in person autographed card

to show.

i am guessing that this is about as far as that collection will get.

here are some more (certified) dodger autos - a 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams ron cey card

and a dave lopes card from the same set

this tommy john sticker auto card

comes from 2005 donruss greats

and this eric gagne signed card

is from 2006 upper deck sp authentic.

i was very happy to pick up this last card - a 2014 panini immaculate collection steve garvey signed card

numbered to 49.  it looks like he signed a piece from a watercoloring paper.  it's nice.  i'm pretty sure he tried to add his number 6 at the end (not an exclamation point), which in my mind should also be retired by the dodgers.  however, i recognize my bias and after considering the fact that the yankees are running out of numbers, i think the dodgers' hall of fame requirement (except in the case of jim gilliam) is probably a pretty good one.

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...

from alston to young to me from someone, part 2

while i was able to determine who sent me the 'anonymous' package the other day, there are still a bunch of cards to show off from the 150 dodgers that were included.  the cards were packaged alphabetically by last name, so this post will focus on the second half of the alphabet.  here's a 1997 fleer golden memories card of hideo nomo

it, of course, highlights his no-hitter at coors field in 1996.  it might be the only card to also reference a player's 'wa'.

here's a 1999 fleer tradition warning track card of carlos perez

apparently playing fetch in dodger stadium.  i miss the outfield wall murals.

did you know that juan pierre was fast?  upper deck figured that out and included him in the 2007 sp authentic 'authentic speed' insert set

rafael furcal is also in the set, so i guess i need to track him down now.

i had never heard of 1993 upper deck diamond gallery until a short time ago, and here's a mike piazza card from that set

he looks a bit like an unfrozen caveman lawyer who is being thawed out after falling into a crevasse.  phil hartman, you are missed.

also missed is johnny podres, seen here on a 2005 donruss greats card.

i need to see if i have all of the dodgers from this set.  it's very nicely done.

there were a few ismael valdes cards in the box, including this nice 1998 fleer ultra gold medallion parallel

it's strange to see dodger stadium in a montone color like that.

i was going to end the post with this 1999 fleer tradition warning track card of valdes tipping his cap

but i figured i would go all the way to the end of the package's alphabet.  that means that this 2007 upper deck sp legendary cuts maury wills card

gets to see some blog time, as does this 1999 bowman eric young international parallel.

so there you have it, a sampling of the cards i received from eutaw street cardboard.  good stuff.