i remain unsetisfied - 1978 topps signed edition

i have a saved search for 1978 topps signed cards. i have no intention of completing the set in autographed fashion, but there are a few cards that i wouldn't mind adding to my effort, and after the national last year where i failed to fully peruse one vendor's wares, i felt the itch to add to this collection.

over the course of the last few months, i've added 36 cards to the collection. this put me over the two-thirds mark for the set, as i now have 501 unique cards signed out of 726, and 547 total cards signed. anyway, here are the new cards to share:

ron guidry

i had tried to get guidry via ttm a couple of times with no success, so i went the third party route. once i added this card, i decided i wanted to get to 66.7% which meant at least 18 more cards to track down.

the next card i added was ken brett's

brett passed away in 2003 and i was surprised to see this card for a pretty low price. his '78 topps card was well known in my neighborhood because of the back

he was good for a dinger when we played the game using card backs.

rick rhoden

i have a rhoden ttm signed card as part of my dodger collection, but i didn't have a second one for the (semi) set build. the only other dodgers i need a second signed card of are johnny oates and ted martinez.

i'd like to get as many of the manager cards in the set as i can, so i added a few more in this endeavor. here's bobby cox

i guess that could be his signature. it's a leap of faith with many of these, and i was sure to not spend too much on this one in particular.

bob lemon

i am pretty confident about this one, which was one of the cards i most wanted to add.

gene mauch

danny ozark

earl weaver

i think the only managers i still need are vern rapp and darrell johnson. nope. i just checked and i also need herman franks, sparky anderson, chuck tanner, and billy martin.

mike flanagan

mark fidrych

two guys gone too soon

for some reason, the tigers featured a lot of players i either didn't try or don't sign ttm. so, here's chuck scrivener

and fernando arroyo

brian downing

doesn't sign at all these days from what i can tell. i have his certified auto from 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams, but was glad to add this card.

amos otis

as with guidry up top, i had tried to get otis ttm but was unsuccessful. one of my favorite lines from ted lasso was "way to notice, amos otis".

jamie quirk

and jim slaton

represent the brew crew

with this bombo rivera card

i am just three cards away from having the full twins team set signed.

marty perez

is good to have, but the a's i really wanted were mitchell page

and manny sanguillen

i would be absolutely giddy if i were able to find a willie crawford signed 1978 topps card.

right after sandy alomar sr passed away, i picked up his signed card, along with three of his teammates

tom paciorek

the former dodger signed a 1974 topps card for me in a private signing, but i didn't send his '78 card, prioritizing a dodger card over this effort.

bill plummer

from what i can tell, plummer signed all of his 1978 cards the same way in the same place

pepe frias

love the shiny jacket that the then-future dodger was sporting

stan bahnsen

the former rookie of the year reminded me and my friends of lenny from laverne & shirley

bob davis

like plummer, all of the bob davis signed cards i've seen make use of his bat

pat scanlon

came from a seller who also sold me a dave freisleben signed 1978 topps card, except he sent a 1976 card

by mistake. i was refunded so no harm no foul

freddie patek

was one i really wanted for the set, and he doesn't sign. i also added the stolen bases league leader card

but have no path i am aware of to have frank taveras sign it. i did find taveras' individual card

which features one of the more eclectic photos in the set. colors and stripes and netting, oh my!

tony perez

and fergie jenkins

were high on my list of players to add. i have a 1978 topps perez buyback auto from one of the archives releases, but am happy to have this loose version in my set.

finally, one of the cards i really wanted to add the most was that of bobby bonds

i settled for this one that is made out "to bill". there were a couple of authenticated bonds cards i came across, but the prices were high and the autos maybe not as bold. i have a couple of things signed by bonds, and the auto looked good to me with a reasonable price. besides, i figure if it's a fake, it wouldn't have the endorsement.

i wish that young gcrl had taken some 1978 topps cards to the hot stove events i attended as a kid instead of a ball that has now almost completely faded or an autograph book that is not as fun to flip through as a binder of cards.

i haven't added any new cards to this collection for a bit, but i am sure i will eventually get that itch again. stay tuned!

to give is to receive

most of the giveaways i've hosted have been "almost free" in that claimants can have as many cards as they choose, and need only send one card back to me in return. the most recent giveaway i hosted was a true giveaway so i was a bit surprised when one of the winners, mark z, sent a few cards back my way.

mark took care of a few 1991 needs from my want list, with five cards from 1991 classic including steady eddie murray

along with brett butler, kal daniels, orel hershiser, and ramon martinez

that's the first new kal daniels card i've added to my collection in a long time! 

another 1991 need sent along was this 1991 legends sports memorabilia darryl strawberry card

new dodger strawberry was the subject of an absolute avalanche of oddball cards back then. the homecoming didn't go quite as planned but there was so much excitement early on. i really enjoy finding and receiving new-to-me dodger strawberry cards!

one more card to show, and it's a bit more modern. it's a 2013 topps chrome andre ethier blue refractor parallel

these guys are numbered to 199

i am reminded of the interesting stuff topps put on card backs in the early 2010's. in this case, the career chase of hank aaron's rbi total. ethier amassed another 152 rbi in his career after this card was printed, so he only fell 1,610 short of hammerin' hank's mark. 

that's good stuff, just like these cards. thanks mark!

bonus content!

jon from penny sleeves reached out a couple of weeks ago asking about some player collections of mine and late last week these two cards showed up in my mailbox:

1997 collector's edge masters mark brunell ripped

2000 topps tek vladimir guerrero pattern 7

pattern 7 is "hometown" and topps has "nizao bani" listed for vladdy. he was born in nizao (according to baseball reference) and bani is close by. not sure why they had two towns listed, or if nizao bani is a whole separate entity. i am also reminded that i need to get my brunell cards listed in tcdb.

anyway, more good stuff for the collection. thanks jon!

it's beginning to look a lot like 1977

i've really stopped being a slave to leaf products with their false scarcity print runs, but i do pick up one of their cards now and again. they have some crazy designs and themes, and then they have some that hit the old nostalgia bell pretty hard.

my most recent leaf purchase comes from 2025 leaf lumber, and it's a four-player bat relic card featuring george foster, jim rice, steve garvey, and gary carter. i have the purple version that is numbered to five

i bought it for two reasons. one, the price was low, and two, it hearkens back to the summer of '77 when i was following baseball for the first time. my memories of that season are more tied to the world series and then the 1978 topps baseball card release when i saw numbers like foster's 52 home runs on cards for the first time.  here's the back:

now, these four sluggers did not have the four highest home run totals of 1977. foster and rice led their respective leagues, as shown on the 1978 topps home run leaders card

but turning the card over, we see that jeff burroughs had the second highest total of the season. 

carter was tied for twelfth, but i don't begrudge leaf for including him (or garvey) on the card. i also have to point out he four dodgers there on the back of the league leaders card, each with at least 30 homers. that had never happened before.

some of you may recall that i was given my first pack of baseball cards in 1977. my uncle handed me a pack while i was sitting in the back seat of our station wagon. i didn't find cards of any of these four (the only two i really remember were mike schmidt and bill travers), but i feel a connection to the set regardless. 2026 topps heritage is here, and i bought a box from topps to whet my appetite for the main course that will be 2027 topps heritage. 

i'll have a post up soon.

as for the leaf card, whatever reason leaf had to skip over all of those other guys on the back of the topps card and include garvey and carter instead, i am glad they did so. if only they had made one of these with the four dodgers on it!

one other item somewhat relative to this post - this is a 2025 leaf vivid pre-production proof i bought in the latter part of last year

i decided to buy it for the same reasons i bought the bat card up top - a low price and the nostalgia factor. i watched a lot of baseball in the late 1970's and early 1980's on a tv that looked just like that.

the days of archives

not quite "sands through the hourglass" stuff, but i spent a little bit of time on wednesday opening the blaster of 2025 topps archives that i ordered from topps. the official release day wasn't until yesterday, so i was surprised to see the fedex man with this part of my order. i also ordered a blaster of 2025 topps chrome update which did supposedly release on wednesday, but that hasn't shown up yet. go figure.

the first two cards out of the first pack were these ones:

and the first two cards out of the second pack were these ones:

thankfully, the third pack strayed from this pattern, as did all the others.

each pack included cards from the three designs being used this year - 1964 (as seen above), 1996

(the return of the phantom zone inset photo!) and 2005

we are officially in the joey votto legend era, and i always enjoy seeing teddy ballgame on cards, although the dangling socks placement on this one is suspect. plus, topps used this same photo last year on the 1994 design.

as far as the designs go, things are pretty faithful to the originals, but there are some font differences for sure. i am still of the opinion that 1996 topps looks better in landscape format, and there are some of those to be had

the luis robert card is nice but i really like the connor norby even if the rookie card logo seems to float a bit. topps included other marlins rookies with the 1996 design

and you can see the rc logo floats in the portrait design, too.

stan musial's card

caught my eye as a nice looking card. i just wish they had put him on the 1964 design so we could have had a belated final tribute card.

i guess my least favorite design used this year is 2005. having the player's name on the side makes the last name up top redundant and a waste of space. here's drake baldwin's card

as well as matt shaw's

i am liking those cub unis and am glad to see them on so many cards.

regarding keepers, i found a couple. shohei ohtani's card

and freddie freeman's card

go to the dodger collection, and vladimir guerrero's card

is for my player collection.

the blaster promised four black foil parallels, and here they are:

not a bad group there. the ozzie albies card looks especially nice with the black foil border.

i found another parallel - an "aqua scope foilboard" numbered to 75 of brenton doyle

his base card was also in one of the packs.

and then there are the inserts. not all inserts were represented in my blaster, but i did get a 1995 topps cyberstats season in review card of jung hoo lee

and a 2007 topps all-star card of fernando tatis jr

and then, of course, dylan crews made an appearance with a 1987 boardwalk & baseball insert

the first two cards are pretty true to the original design, although the season in review card of lee doesn't deal with the "what if" aspect that the original 1995 cards did. as for the boardwalk & baseball insert, topps has replaced the b/b on the originals with a team logo in the lower right. i guess that means there will be no "no slash" variations available.

the big card from the blaster was a fan favorites autograph:

ol' zebulon is a bit of a fan favorite here, although it might be because of his unique name. as a pitcher he had middling success in 2025 which was in line with most other twins players.

not a bad blaster to rip, and it was early to boot! a fun way to spend part of one of the days of my life.