Jonny Gomes collectors' thread

[LWMM]

A thread for all things Gomes. Some fun cards are shown below; would love to see what others on here have, too. Fun fact: the second-to-last card below is the 2009 Topps Unique Logo Man Autos 1/1, and is arguably Gomes's best card. But what's wrong with it?

Still looking for these ones, as well as rarer cards and 1/1s:

• 2002 Just Prospects Prototypes #JPP17 (might not exist)
• 2004 Skybox Autographics Prospects Endorsed Dual Jonny Gomes/Andruw Jones (probably never produced, looking for a redemption card)
• 2005 Upper Deck Platinum #412 /5
• 2006 Bowman Originals 2004 Bowman Chrome Refractors /2
• 2007 Fleer Ultra Autographics (probably doesn't exist)
• 2014 Topps Acetate #146 /10
• 2014 Topps Heritage Black Back #135 (WS Game 4)
• 2014 Topps Heritage Black Back #274
• 2015 Topps Heritage Blue Back #572

[green4407]

Petaluma boy!

Nice collection.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[LWMM]

Thanks, green4407! Here's another Petaluma boy: Jonny Gomes's older brother, Joey. Took me years to find this card—a stadium giveaway that, other than the Valvoline/ESPN Radio logos (presumably the sponsors of the giveaway) is identical to the regular Multi-Ad set for that year. Finally arrives yesterday. It leaves me missing only two of Joey Gomes's 79 non-1/1 cards:

• 2003 Topps 205 Bazooka Red #140 /5
• 2003 Topps 205 Brooklyn #140 (possibly also /5)

Interestingly, Joey Gomes is wearing #31, which Jonny Gomes also wore for a long time.

[msink28]

Great stuff. Many of those left on your list are brutally hard.

Super weird that they spelled his name wrong on that 1/1.

[soey10]

Originally Posted by msink28

Great stuff. Many of those left on your list are brutally hard.

Super weird that they spelled his name wrong on that 1/1.

Looked at the card for 30 seconds and couldn’t figure it out. Thank you, otherwise my OCD would have driven me nuts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LWMM]

Thanks, msink28. Nothing like chasing cards that might or might not exist. There are white whales, and then there are yetis...

The Topps Unique is his only card in the set, so maybe it had less of a chance to go through quality controls? Still pretty head scratching though. It's misspelled on the back, too:

[LWMM]

Three recent pickups of IP autos, all from 2002: the Bowman Gold parallel, and his two minor-league cards from that year (Pepsi Bakersfield Blaze; Grandstand California League Top Prospects).

Gomes changed his signature around the time of the 2003 Arizona fall league, so there are a limited number of his 2002 cards with 2002-style signatures on them.

Depending on how you count, this leaves me looking for four 2002 Gomes base cards with 2002-style signatures:

• 2002 Bowman Chrome
• 2002 Just Prospects Prototypes (might not exist—I don't have even an unsigned copy)
• 2002 Just the Franchise Prototypes
• 2002 Topps Reserve /999

[gottagitdemjs]

Jonny F'ing Gomes, a KC Royals legend, only on the team for a couple months, didn't even step on the field in the World Series...still gave one of the greatest championship parade speeches in all of history....Respect.

[LWMM]

Originally Posted by gottagitdemjs

Jonny F'ing Gomes, a KC Royals legend, only on the team for a couple months, didn't even step on the field in the World Series...still gave one of the greatest championship parade speeches in all of history....Respect.

And then, regrettably, left off the list of those invited to the White House. (Fun fact: the American flag jacket that he wore to the White House in 2014 sold on MLB auctions for $10,050.)

Gomes clocked only 12 games and 34 plate appearances with the Royals, and doesn't have any cards in their uniform. I have one of his jerseys from the team, which I'll pull out and take a picture of when I'm back in town.

[LWMM]

A couple cards from a Japanese set. It's officially a 2022 set (apparently released in February 2023), though I only just discovered it. This is probably because they seem to be sold with some regularity on Japanese sites, but less so on sites such as eBay.

It also turns out there are a number of parallels to track down: unnumbered, /5, and 1/1 parallels of the base card, and /9, /5 and 1/1 parallels of the auto. These are now all incoming except the /5 auto and the 1/1s.

[AllHofers]

Dint realize true player collectors still existed. Amazing stuff.

[theplasticman]

Originally Posted by AllHofers

Dint realize true player collectors still existed. Amazing stuff.

His Gomes collection is incredible!

There are a lot of us, player collectors, out there.

[LWMM]

Thanks, guys. Appreciate the kind words.

I posted about this at the end of 2022, but never updated this thread to note having checked off a non-1/1 from the list—something that now happens once every few years, at most. The 2006 Upper Deck Special F/X Blue, found in a random lot of 22 Gomes cards (picture from the eBay lot below).

[LWMM]

2019 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autographs. With the exception of two 1/1s issued in 2017 as part of the Topps 65th Anniversary Party, these are Gomes's only non-Japanese cards since 2015.

The purple is /150, silver /99, and blue /25; the pictured purple and blue are serial numbered to Gomes's jersey number (i.e., 005/150 and 05/25).

If anyone's seen the gold 1/1, I'm all ears. I'm also interested in dupes of the ones pictured here, of which I already have a decent number.

[LWMM]

Thanks to Lefty for these beauties—2002 Bowman's Best base, blue, and red. These don't come along too frequently, let alone in groups of three.

[LWMM]

Picking up a Gomes 1/1 is pretty rare these days; it happens maybe once a year. (Picking up a non-1/1 from the needs list is even rarer—maybe once every three years.) Over the last few months, however, several popped up on eBay.

The first is a 2007 Topps Moments & Milestones signed magenta printing plate—it’s one of 16 signed Gomes 1/1s (I now have 8 of them), and joins the yellow, which I already had. The second is a 2009 Topps Updates & Highlights magenta printing plate—it joins the cyan and yellow, leaving me missing only the black.

All told, this takes me to 136/305 1/1s—44.6%, and 17 away from reaching the midway point.

[LWMM]

Another new 1/1—the third to appear on eBay in two months. Such a regular series of pickups from the needs list hasn't happened since probably 2015, Gomes's last year in MLB, and the last year in which he regularly appeared in sets.

This is the 2007 Upper Deck yellow printing plate; it joins the black, which I bought shortly after release in 2007.

The plate brings my 2007 stats up to 92/114 (80.7%). This breaks down to 67/68 non-1/1s (98.5%), and 25/46 1/1s (54%). The missing non-1/1 is the 2007 Fleer Autographics. The card most likely wasn't produced, although I have two of the plates.

Overall stats are now a bit above 718/903 (79.5%)—I still need to add a few to the numerator. The 1/1s, meanwhile, are now 137/305 (44.9%)—only 16 away from breaking 50%.

[LWMM]

Just came across this listing on eBay—a signed 2004 Topps Total card, offered for $25 by patriottsportscards. The problem? That's Gomes's early signature, which he stopped using around the fall of 2003; 2004 Topps Total was released in May 2004. There are other problems with the auto, not to mention how forced it looks, as if someone was laboring over every stroke. But, timewise, it just doesn't work.

You don't normally see fake Gomes autos—one of the benefits, perhaps, of collecting a lower-profile player whose autos aren't worth faking. But occasionally they do pop up.





Here are what Gomes's autos actually look like:

2002 auto (pack issued, used until late 2003), followed by a late 2003 auto (IP, used for a short period of time), followed by a 2004 auto (pack issued, March 2004 release date):

[LWMM]

Here's a fun error from 2006 Bowman Originals. Gomes had 15 buyback autos, including of his 2006 Bowman card, which was serial numbered numbered /363. Except, at least three copies were numbered /366.

When I discovered the error, I bought up a bunch of these cards, and now have at least 30. This provides some helpful context; the errors all range from 257/366 to 279/366 (a range of 23), and cards numbered 253/363 and 380/363 provide some potential bookends (expanding the potential error range by only 3, to 26). Interestingly, however, there is also a 267/363, meaning that there was at least one interruption in the incorrectly numbered cards.

Unless otherwise indicated, these are (a) /363, and (b) owned by me:

• 021
• 024 (Beckett)
• 029
• 035
• 052 (eBay)
• 057
• 075
• 093
• 098
• 111
• 127
• 128
• 139
• 144
• 176
• 199
• 206 (COMC)
• 209
• 221
• 249
• 250
• 251
• 253
• 257/366
• 267
• 278/366
• 279/366
• 280
• 286
• 296
• 302
• 304
• 319
• 329
• 334
• 340 (eBay)
• 349

It must be mind-numbing work to serial number all those cards, and it's perhaps no surprise that such mistakes sometimes happen. Pulling data from Beckett's list of 901 buybacks in 2006 Bowman Originals, there were some 70,102 autographed buybacks in the set. If it took 5 seconds to number each card, that's four straight days of nonstop numbering.

Separately, I'm missing three of Gomes's cards from this set:

• 2002 Bowman Gold /1
• 2004 Bowman Chrome Refractors /2
• 2006 Bowman Chrome X-Fractor /1

Not surprisingly, the /2 is Gomes's lowest-numbered non-1/1 (he also has two /3s, and 18 /5s). 2006 Bowman Originals seems to have been fairly widely broken, so it's within the realm of possibility that it shows up some day.



January 12, 2025, update: Added 302/363.
January 20, 2025, update: Added 304/363 (eBay).
February 8, 2025, update: Acquired 93/363 & 304/363.

[seanbros55]

Petaluma’s Finest!

[LWMM]

Originally Posted by seanbros55

Petaluma’s Finest!

So much so that August 31, 2013, was declared Jonny Gomes Day. Given what you have as your location, by the way, you may appreciate this article: The 707 Leaves the 510 For the 617 (Jonny Gomes to Sign With the Boston Red Sox).

Gomes played nearby, for the A's, in 2012 and 2014, bookending his stint with the Red Sox. I have a couple jerseys from those years that I'll try to take pictures of.

[LWMM]

Above (post #10), I mentioned a 2022 Japanese set (Epoch JFRPA) that I just discovered, and which had eight cards. As I said then, I've been able to track down a few more of them, which arrived yesterday—including three copies of a /9 auto, three more copies of a /61 auto (I already had one), and a parallel of the base card.

I'm now missing only the /5 parallels (I thought I had one, but after ordering the seller said it was sold out), and the 1/1s. One of the 1/1s sold on Yahoo Japan auctions, but I wasn't aware of it at the time. Given the progress to date, however, I'm relatively optimistic that I'll be able to make progress on these.

• Base
• Foil signature
• Foil signature gold /5
• Foil signature holo /1
• Auto silver /61
• Auto gold /9
• Auto black gold /5
• Auto holo /1

[Highroller]

Great collection, loved when he was on the Reds.

[LWMM]

Originally Posted by LWMM

And then, regrettably, left off the list of those invited to the White House. (Fun fact: the American flag jacket that he wore to the White House in 2014 sold on MLB auctions for $10,050.)

Gomes clocked only 12 games and 34 plate appearances with the Royals, and doesn't have any cards in their uniform. I have one of his jerseys from the team, which I'll pull out and take a picture of when I'm back in town.

Two years and change later, here's that jersey: a home white from 2015, with a postseason patch. The tl/dr of what follows is that Gomes wore this style of jersey 21 times that season, although I haven't been able to find a photomatch for it (yet), and on at least some of those days he was likely wearing a different jersey of the same style.

The MLB holo (JB028918) calls it a "Team Issued Jersey," and ascribes it to a January 20, 2016, "Royals Club Authentication." This doesn't mean it wasn't game worn; my understanding is that, at least at the time, MLB Authentication wouldn't mark something as game used unless they saw it in action. Anything authenticated four months after the season ended, therefore, would be called team issued. Meanwhile, the postseason patch doesn't preclude regular-season use; the patch may have been added after the regular season concluded.

As noted above, Gomes was with the Royals for only a month—he was largely a clubhouse addition for a postseason-bound team, played in only 12 of 32 regular-season games, and was left off the postseason roster. Thanks to this excellent site, it's possible to see when Gomes wore each style of uniform in 2015. Among other things, it shows that he wore home whites 21 times. This includes six games in the ALCS/ALDS, when, per Getty/AP image searches, the postseason patch was used; a separate patch was used for the World Series (two games in home whites), so it is unlikely this jersey was used then.

Home whites: September 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. October 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 23, 27, 28.
Home blues: September 6, 27.
Road greys: September 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 28, 29, 30. October 1, 2, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 30, 31. November 1.
Road blues: September 12, 20. October 3, 4.

N.B.: Bolded dates are those that Gomes played in.

The jersey (larger photos of the front/back at the links):



Sample photo (AP photo #268421967406) showing him wearing the same style of jersey on September 1, 2015. Given the alignment of the 3 and the button, I don't think it's the jersey I have.

[LWMM]

Originally Posted by LWMM

So much so that August 31, 2013, was declared Jonny Gomes Day. Given what you have as your location, by the way, you may appreciate this article: The 707 Leaves the 510 For the 617 (Jonny Gomes to Sign With the Boston Red Sox).

Gomes played nearby, for the A's, in 2012 and 2014, bookending his stint with the Red Sox. I have a couple jerseys from those years that I'll try to take pictures of.

Here's the 2012 jersey: a home white. The MLB holo (EK320804) says that this is from Game 5 of the ALDS, where a 6–0 loss to Detroit ended the A's season. Gomes pinch hit in the bottom of the eighth, flying out on two pitches against Verlander, for his only plate appearance of the game. I trust MLB Authentication, although it does leave an open question of what happened to the GJN patch that we can see in the below photo from that game. The patch was in memory of Pat Neshek's son, who was born on October 2, 2012, but died 23 hours later.

Gomes signed with the A's in January 2012, and spent the full season there. That means this jersey could theoretically have been used a decent amount in addition to the ALDS; if we're lucky, the staining on it reflects that use, rather than the conditions it was subjected to afterwards.

Per that excellent uniform reference, the home whites were worn 31 times in 2012. The number sounds low, considering the 81 home games in a season, but is explained by the fact that the A's wore their alternate jerseys (which were either green or yellow) much more frequently than the "alternate" designation would suggest. Games for the home whites are given in the below list, with the 16 dates on which Gomes played in bold:

• March: 28, 29
• April: 6, 7, 22
• May: 9, 13, 25, 26
• June: 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 23
• July: 19, 22, 30
• August: 2, 3, 7, 18, 21
• September: 2, 5, 16, 28, 29
• October: 9, 10, 11

The jersey (larger photos of the front/back at the links):



Getty Images photo (1408875831) of Game 5 of the ALDS (larger version here):