This isn't a Christmas post about Old Saint Nick. Nope. Today I'm going to show off one of the latest additions to my Tony Gwynn collection.
Back in October, Rod over at Padrographs announced his decision to cutdown his collection to three things: Padres autographs, Tim Flannery, and Tony Gwynn. The thing about Mr. Padre was he wanted to narrow down his collection to nineteen 9-pocket pages of his cards. The rest he divided among Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown and me.
He ended up sending a big box filled with a bunch of San Diego Padres cards that included over 300 different Tony Gwynns. Honestly... I was stoked and overwhelmed at the same time. I was obviously happy to see so many cards of my favorite player sitting in front of me. On the other hand, I was a little intimidated by the idea of sifting through my collection to see which of these 300+ cards I needed.
In fact... I pushed it off until Thanksgiving Break when I knew I'd have some free time. Then Thanksgiving came and went without me touching his box. The guilt started to eat away at me... so I made a promise to myself to take care of business over Christmas Break. And that's what I've done since 8am this morning (right now it's almost 2pm).
The past six hours I've been sorting everything he sent me. After that I went through my three binders worth of Gwynns and checked to see which cards I did or did not have. Honestly... the most time consuming thing was going through (Gwynn's TCDB pages) and learning about all of the different variations from the Junk Wax Era that I'll write about in another post.
Today's post will center around a card that isn't listed on TCDB, but it's still very cool nonetheless:
2013 PunkRockPaint Old Hoss 100 #61
What you're feasting your eyes on is a custom card of Tony Gwynn created by PunkRockPaint for a set featuring 100 of the greatest baseball players. If you're interested in seeing who else made the list, click here.
I wasn't familiar with this set until this morning, which totally sucks because I would have loved to have purchased one of these sets. The card front reminds me of Gypsy Queen or Allen & Ginter... which is totally awesome.
But the back is even more awesome...
Artist Proof (1 of 1)
Charles Radbourn a.k.a Old Hoss... is a hall of fame pitcher who is also known for being the first person ever photographed giving the finger. He passed away back in 1897. However according to this card back, he spoke from his grave and described Gwynn as a "demented serial killer living a cover life as a chubby singles-hitting jolly fellow."
Bet you've never heard or seen anyone else accuse Mr. Padre of being a serial killer.
No way you're going to focus on anything written after this, so I'll wrap things up here.
Thank you Rod for adding such an awesome custom to my Gwynn collection. And thank you for all of the other cards you sent my way. Although I'm finished sorting and scanning them, I'm going to hold off on writing about them. Don't worry, I promise it won't take me another two months to write about them.
Happy Thursday and sayonara!
Old Hoss Radbourn is one of my favorite players ever, thanks to the fantastic book '59 in '84.
ReplyDeleteChecking out that custom set now!
That's hilarious. The joke wouldn't work so well if Gwynn were at all a shady, unlikable guy.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really sweet Gwynn card and Old Hoss is one of my favorite baseball follows on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteHappy New year my friend!
ReplyDeleteAwesome card! Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling of getting a large player collection and sifting through the cards looking for ones needed for the collection. There are several occasions when you see a card that you have never seen before which indicates one that is needed. Sweet Old Hoss card and when I was collecting old judges (The original OJ's) I actually had a Hoss Radbourn old judge card. When you look up his stats the team, he played for was the Providence Grays and the Boston Beaneaters and imagine back in the day those pitchers back then pitched daily. Look at how many games Old Hoss won in a single season 60 games and had started 73 games that year and had 73 complete games. Thanks for the memories of Old Hoss and congrats on your new additions and looking forward to seeing the ones you added.
ReplyDeletewax pack wonders - i'll have to look into that book... although i've got a stack of books (mainly baseball card related) that are sitting on a shelf waiting to be read.
ReplyDeletebrett alan - very true. i've never heard anything bad about gwynn's personality or character. i sadly never had the opportunity to meet him, but people i've spoken too said he was really cool
the snorting bull - i just found him on twitter. the only problem is i don't actively look at my twitter feed
johnnys trading spot - happy new year johnny!
jafronius - happy new year jafronius!
rr - it's crazy how baseball has changed over the years. even the way pitchers were used in my childhood to how they are used now is like comparing night to day. the idea that someone pitched a complete game in all 73 games he started is insanely awesome. it makes me want to track down a playing era card of his.
Neat! I'll have to see if I can track down the Alomar and Halladay!
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat looking card. The back made me chuckle. I might have to look into this set and see if there are any that interest me.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing rest of your Gwynn goodies. Happy New Year!
Nice custom!
ReplyDeleteSCC
That Old Hoss is the Boss Sauce😄😆🤣
ReplyDeletederek - best of luck tracking down the alomar and halladay.
ReplyDeletechris - cards are all scanned up... just need a chance to sit down and write about them. should have one in the very near future.
scc - yeah punkrockpaint did a great job on these
xavier higgins - lol. yup.