i can't leaf stuff like this alone

i have several saved searches on ebay, and sometimes these searches lead me down a rabbit hole and i wind up with cards that i wouldn't normally be seeking out. a few months ago, my saved "garvey" search brought up an odd mix of 57 cards from a seller. the main photo included a 1972 topps steve garvey card, 

which is why the lot hit my saved search.

there were other cards shown, and i think you will agree that the buy it now was reasonable with an all-in total cost of about $59. these are some of the other cards that were shown in the main photo for the lot:

strangely enough, the title only mentioned garvey and don money. 

once i saw the 1981 o-pee-chee alan trammell card

and the 1985 leaf greg luzinski card, i began to wonder if the 1975 george brett or 1976 ron guidry rookie cards might be o-pee-chee? obviously the garvey (no o-pee-chee high numbers in 1972) and the 1975 mini gary carter rookie are topps, and the 1977 rod carew card is topps (no all-star banners on o-pee-chee cards in '77), but the brett and guidry cards could be.

here's a closer look at that gary carter rookie

and the carew

which was in pretty good condition.

unfortunately, neither the guidry

nor the brett

were canadian varieties. however, the 1970 larry bowa rookie card

was!

there was another photo that showed delino deshields' fantastic 1988 o-pee-chee exclusive card

being included as part of the set, but what really sold me on making the purchase was this photo

more leaf and o-pee-chee cards were shown, and this bunch wound up including a 1987 leaf rafael palmeiro rookie card

but what got my attention was the card showing in the lower left of the photo. that's a 1989 fleer billy ripken card, and i figured it was worth taking a shot at getting the "f-ck face" version. i do not own, nor have i ever owned, any variation of the card, and i had minor regret after passing up a black box variation in a dollar bin at a card show last year. so, i paid my money and crossed my fingers, just as i had with the brett and the guidry.

it turned out to be the black box version

still, i was not disappointed with the lot even though, in the end, this is the only card that has (so far) found its way into my permanent collection:

and that's because of the dodger stadium background on jerry koosman's 1985 leaf card

all that glitters is not gold

just another cardboard abomination from 2008 tristar signa cuts

that i had to add to my steve garvey collection. this one is a gold parallel, and features a mutilated 1985 fleer superstar special card of the garv and goose gossage. this is fool's gold, but i can't resist.

i have saved a few signed cards from potentially becoming tristar fodder in the past few months as well, adding these cards to my non-certified autograph collection:

1983 fleer rick monday

1986 topps pedro guerrero

1981 fleer don stanhouse, 1989 upper deck ricky horton, 1990 topps debut mike munoz, and 1992 fleer ultra brett butler

1982 topps kmart maury wills

1982 topps kmart steve garvey

1982 donruss steve garvey (diamond kings)

1975 topps jeff burroughs/steve garvey (1974 mvps)

1984 fleer steve garvey

1984 topps ralston purina steve garvey

1985 leaf steve garvey

1986 topps quaker steve garvey

1990 pacific legends steve garvey

and finally, a 2015 theautographcard.com steve garvey

that is upside down, no matter how you look at it

that last one might actually look better as a tristar signa cut!