Digicat's hobby obsession: the SF Giants rookie card collection.

digicat

It's done. Outside of a few upgrades here and there, I have a rookie(ish) card for every player to ever play for the SF Giants in the SF era, 1958 - now.

I don't strictly follow the traditional "rookie card" definition. For instance, if a modern player had a tough insert, a premium parallel, or a "prospect card" released in a licensed set, I'd go for that (e.g. Topps Tiffany over Topps base, Chrome Gold Refractors over Chrome base, etc). I prefer autographs when I can get them, and among the autographs I'll prefer the on-card auto over the sticker auto. If a player has no officially licensed cards, then I'll go for their earliest minor or foreign league card. If a player doesn't appear on cardboard anywhere (as is the case with several guys), I made my own card for them. I tend to avoid cabinet cards for modern players, or oversized premiums.

There are a few upgrades that I want to make to really feel like this set is complete, but those are all very tough parallels of no-name players that have proven to be very hard to track down.

Anyways, check it out.
Link to the card gallery

ThoseBackPages

Nice!

Time to start heading backwards!

Hallco

Awesome accomplishment man, congrats!!!

digicat

<< <i>Time to start heading backwards! >>



Yeah, that's inevitable. I'm targeting the NY era HoFers first. I'm not going to use the same approach to "rookie cards" for those guys though. I don't really have the finances to do battle for the unique 19th centruy or 190x stuff.

Giantsdude24

Nice Giants collection! I agree with the other poster you should do this all the way back to the beginning of the franchise. Or at least attempt to try it, good luck in your endeavor.

orioles93

Nice job. Thats a sweet Mays rookie and i love the Groat to.

MBMiller25

Rich, I think this is amazing. Im a Tampa Rays fan, and frankly could not even imagine trying to do this for their limited existence, let alone from 1958 forward. How many total cards is this?

jmmiller777

McCovey card rocks. As a long time Giant fan growing up in the bay area, I would love to attempt this. How many years have you been working on this?

larryallen73

Nice!

elronmckenzie

Nice work! I've been doing this with my beloved Mariners since I first starting collecting cards as a kid way back in '85. Nearly 30 years later and I'm still not there yet. We share a handful of players and even a couple of HOFers (Perry & Gossage).

digicat

<< <i>How many total cards is this? >>



It's around 800 cards, which now that I write that out, doesn't seem like a whole lot since the annual Topps sets are around that many.



<< <i>How many years have you been working on this? >>



The collecting process had had a few different stages. It started in 2002 when I started putting together older SF Giants team sets. Around 2006 I started accumulating rookie cards of younger current Giants, and around 2008, I expanded it to the entire population of Giants players, past and present (and future in a few cases).

Fun set.

Still, I'm left to wonder which "phantom ballplayers" I'm missing. There were 3 guys who actually got called up, but never got into a game before getting sent back down again. They were suited up, sitting in the dugout and on the active roster during a game, but got sent right back down for whatever reason. In 1995, Joel Chimelis, who was a scab player during the strike, never got into a game, as the other players refused to play with him. The other two were pitchers, Jaime Arnold (2001) and Jeff Urban (2003), who got called up and sent right back down again when someone came off the DL. Sadly for Chimelis and Urban, that was the closest they ever got to the big leagues. Urban got called up TWICE in 2003, and never got used.

Anyways, if there were 3 guys like within an 9 year window, there were probably more.

The annual media guides usually has that info, but I don't know if I want to start collecting media guides just to find out.

SOM

That is so cool!!

TNP777

Rich, despite your extremely poor choice of teams , that's a pretty darn nice collection. Well done!

digicat

<< <i>Rich, despite your extremely poor choice of teams , that's a pretty darn nice collection. Well done! >>



With a Duke Snider and an Orel Hershisher rookie, there's a little something for everyone's tastes in my set.

GDM67

As someone who focuses mainly on one team, I understand your passion, I admire your commitment and I adore your collection.

digicat

Working on the retired NY era numbers now...

#3 Bill Terry, #4 Mel Ott, #20 Monte Irvin

fkw

Nice Collection

I was going to note that the Terry card pictured doesnt picture Bill, its Zeb Terry.... but I see PSA actually caught a clue and notes it on the slabs now, cool

you may want to go for the real rookie the 1925 Exhibit card of Bill Terry...


PS. one Giants rookie that will be very very tough and may take years to find if at all is the Hack Wilson rookie, the very rare W504 card picturing him with NYNL



.....only card I can add of the SF Era players thats older than the one you would have is this (unique) Matty Alou 1957 Era Dominican rookie

digicat

<< <i>you may want to go for the real rookie the 1925 Exhibit card of Bill Terry... >>



I'm on the look-out for that one too, but I don't really like Exhibits. Too big. Too post-card'y. The e210 is nice and "card sized".

Nice Alou, but for guys with MLB cards, I want the MLB rookie card. If they didn't get an MLB card, I'll go for their earliest minor league or foreign card.

As for the Hack Wilson, since he built his HoF career with other teams, he's not going to show up on my radar unless I decide to take the plunge and try build out with the NY era like I did with the SF era.

hyperchipper09

My hats off to you. I could not imagine tackling that kind of collection

digicat

Since there's no way I'll be able to challenge the more affluent collectors for actual John McGraw rookie issues, I decided to pick one that looked nice.




Also, it's fun to land upgrades for 90s era cards with really low print runs:
Cruz /200, Rios #/50

ThoseBackPages

Nice McGraw!