Jonny Gomes collectors' thread

[LWMM]

Update on Gomes goals #2 and #6 for the year (see post #68). The big addition is thanks to r2d2—the 2022 Epoch JRFPA Decomori signature gold 5/5. I didn't discover this set until 2024 (see posts #58 & #59), and have been playing catch up since; most of the cards came quickly, but this one and an auto /5 have been holdouts. The card was offered for sale on a Japanese website; r2d2's contact in Japan was able to purchase it and ship it to him in Mexico, after which he sent it to me. (He also sent an auto /61 from the set.) This brings me down to only eight non-1/1 cards on the wants list, three of which may not exist (see post #72).

Were it not for that, another big pickup would have stolen the show: the 2002 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor 3/50. It's arguably Gomes's premier rookie card, and comes up for auction only every year or two. Got into a snipe-out on it, but thankfully my max bid was a full $1 higher than the under bidder. This copy is my fourth.

Other nice cards in here include the 2006 UD Gold /299, the 2006 UD Future Stars Black /50, the 2014 Bowman Gold /50, and the 2014 Bowman Gold Red Ice /25.

Weeks 35–41: August 24–October 11
Progress: 38 serial-numbered cards (308 total for the year)

The cards (links to example scans):

• 2002 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor 3/50
• 2002 Topps Pristine U /1999 (3): 283, 367, 503
• 2002 Topps Pristine R 544/799
• 2002 Topps Pristine C Refractor /1999 (2): 133, 1289 (COMC)
• 2002 Topps Pristine U Refractor /799 (4): 106 (COMC), 114, 580, 791
• 2003 Topps Traded Gold /2003 (3): 597, 1332, 1341
• 2004 Topps Traded Gold /2004 (2): 722, 1292
• 2005 SP Collection SPx Materials /199 (2): 79 (IP auto), 109
• 2006 Bowman Originals 2002 Bowman buyback auto 295/341
• 2006 Sweet Spot Signatures Red/Blue Stitch Blue Ink 32/50 (COMC)
• 2006 Upper Deck Gold 138/299
• 2006 Upper Deck Artifacts Autofacts 406/700
• 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars Black 3/50
• 2007 Topps Chrome White Refractor 102/660 (COMC)
• 2008 Topps Heritage Chrome 726/1959 (Beckett)
• 2013 Topps Gold /2013 (2): 681, 1000
• 2014 Bowman Gold 33/50
• 2014 Bowman Red Ice 14/25
• 2014 Topps Gold #146 /2014 (2): 303, 341 (COMC)
• 2014 Topps Update Gold 1817/2014 (Sportlots)
• 2014 Topps Update Pink 24/50
• 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini Red 14/99
• 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini Sepia 23/50
• 2015 Topps Update Black 59/64
• 2022 Epoch JRFPA Decomori signature gold 5/5
• 2022 Epoch JRFPA Authentic Autograph silver 53/61

The cards themselves (larger photo here):

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

As prefaced here, this is a ROMLB signed by Gomes in 2004—apparently on March 2, 2004, when the Devil Rays "B" team played a Spring Training game. More information is also found in this thread on Blowout.

This baseball is significant in that Gomes included the number "60" after his name. That's the number he wore in the majors in 2003 and 2004, when he played only 8 and 5 games, respectively. (He likely also wore the number during at least 2004 Spring Training, given that he signed it on this ball.) He switched to number 31 in 2005, which became his main (although far from only) number throughout his career. This is the only baseball I've seen signed by Gomes where he included the number 60. And I'm not sure I've seen him sign any other object with the number 60.

It's not that surprising that the ball is so rare; it's a lot cheaper to get a player to sign a 50-cent card than a (at current prices) $25 ROMLB, so the latter tend to be handed to more established players. Thankfully, however, someone decided to hand this one to a lesser-known prospect.

Larger photos here and here.

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View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

@mrmopar's post some months back about a 1977 TV Times newspaper insert made me think of this one. It was also a newspaper insert—a 2006 set of eight Rays cards, issued by The Tampa Tribune and sponsored by Circle K. Searching through issues of the paper on newspapers.com, it's possible to reconstruct how this was issued. One card was issued on each of the Sundays in May and June 2006; as the below links show, the paper printed an ad each Saturday showcasing the forthcoming card. These ads further stated that the cards were "Only available inside Tampa Tribunes purchased at participating Circle K locations," which gives a sense of the scarcity of these cards. Indeed, while a few of these showed up at the time, I've seen few (if any) in the nearly two decades following.

@r2d2, do you have Cantu?

Overview ad: Link
May 7, 2006: Aubrey Huff (1/8)
May 14, 2006: Scott Kazmir (2/8)
May 21, 2006: Jonny Gomes (3/8)
May 28, 2006: Toby Hall (4/8)
June 4, 2006: Joe Maddon (5/8)
June 11, 2006: Rocco Baldelli (6/8)
June 18, 2006: Jorge Cantu (7/8)
June 25, 2006: Carl Crawford (8/8)

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View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

It's not every day you add an eleven-year-old card to your collection. And, certainly, it's not every day when that eleven-year-old card is a mainstream issue that you didn't even know existed until it popped up on eBay.

Such, however, is the case here. This is the 2014 Topps Power Players Prizes (also known as Gold HoloFoil) parallel /75. There's a thread on Blowout about this issue (see post #9 from me). In short, it was part of a promotion where there was a 220-card Power Players partial parallel set, and each card had a code on the back; if you entered 30 codes (some sites suggest they had to be from different players), you were given one of these /75 parallels.

There's absolutely no way that 75 of each card were issued—something that would have taken redeeming just under 1.5 million codes. As said, this is the first Gomes I've seen (he has two cards in 2014 Topps), and we've been able to find examples of only 30 cards as part of the list on Blowout. By way of comparison, COMC lists around 600* different 2014 Topps Blacks /63 in active/sold listings, but only 22 Power Players Prizes /75. Given these paltry numbers and the method of distribution, it also seems very possible that not all 660 cards were even issued.

As noted, Gomes has two cards in 2014 Topps, the other being the World Series Game 4 highlight. The World Series Game 5 highlight card is known to exist, which raises the chances that the Game 4 one does too. Until I see it, however, it's staying off the checklist.

Fun fact (albeit less fun for me): I got into a snipe-out with one of the other Gomes collectors on this one, making it probably a top 10 all time most expensive Gomes card.

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* They list 625 2014 Topps blacks, but COMC lists cards in different conditions/grades separately, meaning some are dupes. It would be possible to go through them one-by-one and figure out the exact count, but I just can't make myself.

View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

An early spring training jersey of Gomes, or possibly of his brother Joey. This was probably worn in 2002 or 2003. Jonny Gomes wore #60 for his first two years in the majors (2003 and 2004), before switching to #31 in 2005. There are Gomes jerseys with both #60 and #61, however, and cards show both brothers wearing a similar style jersey (see example below). One guess is that they were both invited to the same spring training, and (being brothers and all) wore consecutive numbers. If that's what happened, it seems more likely that this is a Joey Gomes jersey, given that Jonny Gomes ended up wearing #60 in the majors.

All that is to say that there's some guesswork involved. If anyone has any tips for determining spring training rosters and numbers from back then, I'd appreciate it!

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Like the two above, this jersey was picked up over the last few months. This one is from 2003 or 2004, the two years when Gomes wore #60 for the (then) Devil Rays; he changed to #31 in 2005. He played in a limited number of games both years, 2003 mostly on the road and 2004 all at home, so I would guess that this is more likely from 2004.

I'm very partial to Gomes items from this era, since it's from the period when I was growing up and watching him play at AAA Durham. Whatever the player, too, it's fun to see things from their early days, where the items tend to be more unique (playing with a team for only part of a season, for example, or switching jersey numbers) and hard to find. I also have a gray road #60 jersey which my dad bought as a birthday present close to two decades ago; in some senses this completes the set.

That's it for jerseys for now, although there's a recent bat pickup that I'm intending on posting also.

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View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

Gomes has a few Japanese cards from his brief stint with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2016. Curiously, however, I didn't discover these cards, which are from 2022, until very recently. I bought of the base cards earlier this year, then Mudflap found one of the autos on eBay with a BIN, and immediately hit it. I emailed the seller to ask if he had another; he said one was incoming from a consigner, which he listed shortly thereafter (with a higher BIN).

I'm still not entirely sure what these are, let alone why they didn't show up until two years after the fact or why the same seller seems to have listed all of them. But—as the saying goes—hit BIN first, ask questions later.

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View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[Jonny.gomes.items.4.sell]

17-year-old autographed 1/1 that hasn't appeared before? Go ahead, twist my arm. The magenta is the new one; the yellow, I bought close to release. The base and black /40 are also pictured.

Gomes has 16 autographed 1/1s, of which I own eight. There are three others from this set: the other printing plates, and a red parallel.

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View attachment 362418i have person photos of Johnny and Joey gomes at prom ect before they made pro and team photos of devil rays all original Kodak photos. I was good friends with they mother Michelle Gillespie and I acquired them when she pasted away. I have hundreds of photos if anyone possibly interested in.

 

[bongo870]

my only pulls of his: