Player collector thread--The G-Man, Gary Gaetti!

I collect Gary Gaetti. He is from my hometown of Centralia, IL and began his career with the Minnesota Twins. I've been a Twins fan since the 1970's, when my oldest brother first moved to the Twin Cities. (I was 11 at the time.) Because of him, I started rooting for the Twins and Vikings. Fast-forward to 1984, and I moved to Minnesota to attend St. Cloud State University. Gary is the Twins full-time third baseman, and I am proud to tell every Twins fan that he is from my hometown. (but had to admit we'd never met. But My Dad knew his dad, so that's pretty close.)

At that time, I wasn't collecting cards, but did go to games when I could. Watched young Kirby Puckett get fans excited, and I stayed a true G-Man fan throughout. Twins have a great season in 1987, and I started buying cards again. I was a comic book nerd at the time, but did cards back in the 70's. Twins win the 87 Series, and I really start trying to establish a special Gaetti collection. It was easy to get everything back then--not as many card sets, no variations, no GU or autographs. (packs were fifty cents!) But he was in a lot of themed sets--All Stars, Gold Gloves, regional food issues, national food issues, all sorts of stuff!

In recent years, thanks to eBay and several members from the old Beckett Boards and here, I have expanded the G-Man collection to cards, autographs, balls, and oddball items. My specialty is in his old style of autograph, which I call the "Circle G". Gary signed his autos like that since his early days as a ballplayer. When he left the Twins in 1991 for the Califonia Angels, he eventually changed his auto style to using a more "Cursive G"--like you find on pack inserted autos or IP autos today. I only buy Circle G autos, mostly because they are on Twins cards, so it's a celebration of his heyday with the Twins, plus it's the thrill of the hunt, since they don't pop up often. Went for 5-6 months without seeing any, then BAM! I got three in a couple of weeks! I have also expanded into balls--which are even rarer to find with the Circle G--one bat, and some oddball stuff.

G-Man by the numbers:
Base cards: Have 392, Need 116 (Thanks a lot, Pacific. There are many parallels from the late 90's that I need. I even need lots of base from the same era, since he's a common, and they're tougher to find in many cases.)
Baseballs: 4
Bat: 1--California Angels model
Mini-Helmet: 1 Cardinals signed with Cursive G.
Postcards: 4
Bobblehads: 3 (same bobble, different variations--SGA, Season Ticket Red base, 1987 World Series.)
I have four certified autos, Gary has zero GU cards. (so compared to some collections, I'm waaay behind here. But it's not my fault!)
And a bunch more stuff!

Thanks for reading all the boring intro. Now, some pictures!

The Circle G auto collection.








Postcards. This is the one that got me going looking for Circle G autos.



And others I've picked up.




1996 Leaf Signature Series Gold, Silver, BRonze



An autographed Polaroid. The seller had about 50 or so of autographed ballpayers taken in their hotels or wherever. Had to get it.



My bat...




...and balls. The one in my avatar is my favorite one, but the pic comes out the same size here. So there's that one, and these...







Other favorites...

8x10 photo, via a friend in Centralia. Love the blue uni and **** 'stache. Guess this to be around 1984.



1990 Leaf Preview (courtesy of Magicpapa)



1988 Topps Cloth Test. I think I paid less that $20 for it.



1987 Team Issue both before and after the World Series. If I can get another one of the Post WS, I would love it, since the one I have has a noticeable cut down the side, but I haven't seen any of these on eBay for years.



That will do for now. I don't have common stuff scanned, but here's a link to what I do have scanned of Gary and his son Joe.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v243/ ... ?start=all

Thanks for reading, everyone!

Awesome PC! That mullet trumps the **** stash though.

I love all of the signed base cards. They must be fun to look through all together.

Polaroid, so creepy. So, so creepy.

Whats the deal with the 1996 Leaf Signatures. Did he really sign them? Was is a phase? Those G's are totally different than any of the rest.

Here's a Team issued 5x7 (for those who didn't go to my Bucket)



And here's a close up of a poster I had Puckett sign way back when, and added Gary's sig back in 2007. I couldn't bring myself to ask him to sign the old style.



The things I notice are the "ary" of Gary--very detailed in the early days, more of a straight line in the late 80's/early 90's, and back to more detailed today. Also how he crosses his "tt" and where he dots his "i". Early autos, he crosses with a single line and clearly dots the "i". Later on, crosses with the tail of the "i" and sometimes dots the "i". Like most players, his earliest autos are clearly his best penmanship!

BrewerSuperCollector said:

Whats the deal with the 1996 Leaf Signatures. Did he really sign them? Was is a phase? Those G's are totally different than any of the rest.

Click to expand...

Yes he signed them. Helps to read. He changed his G's to cursive in early 90's.