1958 Inaugural San Francisco Giants Set
Cladiator
Posts: 18,042 ✭✭✭✭✭
Being born and raised in the SF bay area I am a Giants fan through and through. Some of my earliest and best memories are of me and my family curling up under a thick blanket at Candlestick once the sun moved enough to cast a shadow under the upper deck. Good God, for a CA kid, that was about as cold as it got, especially when the wind was whirling. I can still taste the flat wooden spoon you got with those little chocolate malt cups like it was yesterday.
Anyway, a short while back I got the thought of putting together a team roster set from the inaugural year of the Giants being in San Francisco. The more I thought about it the more appealing the thought became. Thankfully 1958 isn't Mays's rookie year lol. I'm looking forward to a long journey with the collection and glad to have somewhere like this forum to share it.
I'll post the new additions to this thread as they roll in over time. So far the collection is only two cards...
Comments
Great cards, color really pops. Thank you for sharing...I have a similar collecting style, putting together Cubs team sets from the 1950s. Currently working on a graded '51 Bowman set. Keep us posted on progress!
P.S. Wrigley could get cold too...lol
Oh man I don't doubt that. Colder than a California kid would want to deal with for sure.
I remember as a kid in the late 70's my mom taking us to Giants games at Candlestick park in the middle of summer, we would leave our house in Sacramento where it was 104 and drive 75 miles west to San Francisco and it was 54 with the swirling winds.
Third card in the set. Something about Hank and that 1000 yard stare. He just looks like a bad a$$.
Agree....nice card! I have a few Sauers in my collection. Hank had a solid career, including 7 years with Cubs. In the Cubs Hall of Fame.
I'm amazed how many well graded vintage cards exist. Shows some people really took good care of their collections.
Are you collecting PSA8 and higher? Does every team feature the same number of players? Is there a manager card? Guess I should go study some checklists eh?
I've got no minimum grade in mind, just going for the highest grade available at the time I'm searching that also fits within the budget. No idea if the size of the roster was uniform throughout the league.
The manager was Bill Rigney and I've not seen any 1958 card for him but that doesn't mean they don't exist, so I guess I'm really not sure. I have seen a 1960 Rigney manager card for whatever that's worth. Maybe someone else here knows if 58 manager cards were a thing...?
I don't see a 1958 Topps Rigney card. But he would be on the team card (#19).
5 Willie Mays
19 New York Giants CL, TC
21 Curt Barclay
37 Mike McCormick RC, UER
68 Daryl Spencer
86 Valmy Thomas RC
107 Ossie Virgil UER
111 Stu Miller
128 Willie Kirkland RC, UER
136 Jim Finigan
152 Johnny Antonelli
166 Danny O'Connell
183 Dave Jolly UER
195 Whitey Lockman UER
211 Pete Burnside RC
253 Don Mueller
263 Eddie Bressoud RC
272 Ray Crone
284 Ray Katt
308 Paul Giel UER
332 Jim King
335 Ruben Gomez
343 Orlando Cepeda RC
362 Ray Jablonski
378 Hank Sauer
399 Marv Grissom
413 Jim Davenport RC
427 Al Worthington
436 Rival Fence Busters CPC
437 Bob Speake
447 Ray Monzant
468 Bob Schmidt RC
486 Willie Mays AS
Nice pickup, good progress on the set. The centering on '58 Topps set was really good compared to other 1950's sets.
Newest addition, I really like that cool blue background...
Another pretty blue background added today...
Just saw this thread for the first time. Sweet collecting theme and you have a great eye for quality cards with great eye-appeal!
Friday night addition baby! My first green background, Woot woot...
Good luck trying to get the Mays in anything near a PSA 7 or 8.
One more added to the collection this week...
Got this Al Worthington yesterday, pretty happy with it. He pitched for the Giants for 6 years but only 2 of those were in San Francisco.
Couple quick upgrades for the set. Both of these are replacing 8's in the collection. I do like these .5 grades.
very awesome... I love it.
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
I always appreciate when someone comes up with a novel project.
This one is a winner!
I'm old enough to remember when the Giants and the Dodgers left. In fact, if memory serves, the Dodgers couldn't leave (get "league" permission) NYC without the Giants following to make the west coast travel for teams to be worth the trouble?
Thanx Clad (don't know your first name - coin guy?) for sharing.
Another new addition to the collection. Feels good putting this one behind me. Now I can really focus on trying to find some of the harder cards to locate.
hey Cladiator,
Say Hey...Oh Yeah...
Added the Jim Davenport rookie card to the set. I was pretty stoked to pick this one up, big fan of Jim. His whole career was with the Giants (13 as a player, 1 as manager). I bet he's got some stories.
Two more into the collection...
Great progress on the set! Just curious, where are you finding most of these? eBay?
Mostly the bay. Some eBay sellers also have non-eBay stores that I've found too.