Looking around Recycled Records in Springfield, I came upon a Beach Boys item I never knew existed. I think of myself as a pretty big Beach Boys fans and I've been working to track down all of their vinyl albums. I don't have their 10th album, Beach Boys' Party, and had no idea that the original pressing of the album included a sheet of photo cards showing the guys doing what else than having a party!
So there before me was a sheet of the first Beach Boys cards created for $5 all by itself, somehow separated from its partner album.
A little research revealed where the sheet of cards came from and, to my surprise, to promote the album Capitol Records also made bags of potato chips with the album cover on it. The great Discogs tweeted a photo of Brian Wilson standing in front of the potato chips during the album's release that was printed in Billboard magazine.
Maybe someday I'll come across another sheet of cards and I can separate them and add them to my other Beach Boys cards, including much of the 2013 Panini Beach Boys set. The base set comes in a regular version, a version with a gold surfer stamp, and a version with an "ARTIST PROOF." Those Artist Proof stamped cards are numbered to /99 and I pulled two in a fairly recent box break, including one of my favorite card overall in the set with Brian Wilson in his pool.
I also pulled two clothing relics, one of Brian Wilson and one of David Marks, a childhood neighbor of the Wilsons who appeared on the first four Beach Boys albums and later toured with the group during reunion tours.
A manufactured relic inset set included in the Panini set included guitar pics from each of the members. I pulled a bunch of these with the Brian Wilson one being my favorite.
The (sort of) Beach Boys are still touring with Mike Love and (almost) original member Bruce Johnston through the fall and early part of 2021. Brian Wilson and Al Jardine haven't played with the band since their huge reunion tours in 2012.
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As for the 2013 Panini set... that guitar pick relic is awesome. I'm down to needing only two cards for my base set build. Honestly... not even sure when or how I started this set build, since I don't think I opened any packs of this stuff.
I've been a fan of their music for decades but I only discovered about 3 years ago that the Wilsons and Mike Love are actually distant cousins. If you travel back the family tree we all directly descend from the same people, who lived in the 1300s. They are something like my 21st cousins. It's such a convoluted process that I can't remember the actual number without pulling up the family tree itself.