thankful for penny sleeves

it was great to hear from jon and then receive some cards from him shortly before thanksgiving. he's always been a supporter of my collection and blogs and he provided me with some great content for both!

first up is a 2011 topps lineage diamond anniversary parallel of an out of place vladimir guerrero

i think we are in for a host of parallels - even more than last year - with topps celebrating its diamond anniversary (again?) this year. 75 years since the 1951 set was released. in 2011 they were celebrating their 60th and i guess both 60 and 75 are diamond anniversaries. go figure.

here are some reprint cards of some dodger greats

to be exact, these are reprints of 1948 swell sport thrills cards of pete reiser, jackie robinson, pee wee reese, and carl furillo. the set was at one time included in tcdb, but it has since been removed for some reason.

at first i thought maybe jon had sent doubles - a mini-bipping! - of this zack wheat 2013 panini cooperstown lumberjacks insert

but those are two different cards with different numbers on the back. a closer look reveals plenty of difference between the two cards. and, there is a third one to be tracked down, which is very similar to the second and has "consistently great" text in place of the "1959" text

on to los angeles now, with a couple of mike piazza cards

that's his sparkly 1995 score summit nth degree parallel and this is a 1997 fleer ultra season crowns insert

that i would have sworn to be a pacific card.

thank you jon and wishing you all the best in 2026!

1955 bowman complete through 184!

i'm back again with another update on my 1955 bowman set progress. three more sheets to share this time as we kick off the second half of the set.

sheet 21, cards 161-168

we are back on track with the side-by-side teammates, including yankees bob grim and larry "yogi" berra. yes, i know his name is lawrence, but the card back just calls him larry. here are the backs:

there is some good info on those backs. matt batts reveals that his childhood idol was lou gehrig, and charlie maxell relives the home run that he hit off of satchel paige. jim busby relives his near-cycle that beat the yankees, and bob grim shares that he always wanted to wear the pinstripes as a major leaguer. finally, we are reminded that berra, "one of baseball's best catchers", was the reigning american league most valuable player.

sheet 22, cards 169-176

four more teammate pairs, starting with the dodgers' carls - furillo and erskine.  here are the backs:

erskine tells us about a couple of world series games between the dodgers and yankees, including the one where he set the strikeout record for a single game. hall of famer robin roberts is not the first player in the set to vote for duke snider as the player who made the best fielding play they've seen. billy shantz also makes an appearance on his solo card after being featured on a card with his brother earlier in the set.

sheet 23, cards 177-184

what's going on here? this sheet isn't complete. well, it is - just wait for it. here are the backs:

johnny logan's card back is the highlight for me here, as i learned something by reading it. apparently there was a day when the braves finished a game against the reds and then played the cubs later that same day. the card doesn't give the date, but this was september 24, 1954.

as for those blank spots on the sheet, they are filled by a couple of players who maintain the teammate pairings. here's johnny logan's teammate hank aaron

aaron is card number 179. his was the first of the big four from the set that i picked up, and a psa 2 with a mark is good enough for me. here's the back:

not sure what the circled "3" means on the back, but it doesn't bother me in the least. having a second year hank aaron card is a trip.

here's card 184 featuring ray katt's new york giants teammate willie mays

say hey! for mays i went with a sgc graded card. it looks nice even though it's just a 1.5. here's the back:

mays truly was a five tool player to the max, and the card back outlines just how talented he was on offense and defense.

it's worth noting that there are 12 different teams represented here among these 24 cards, and with two of baseball's all-time greats, this is probably my favorite set post yet. let's see what the next post brings - stay tuned!

that's really super, super teams

2002 topps super teams can perhaps be considered a precursor to upper deck's 2004 legends timeless teams release in that it focused on specific team subsets without including every franchise on the checklist. however, super teams was even more focused, and with more player representation, than timeless teams.

in my most recent trade with sluggo, i received nearly the entire dodger team set in retrofractor form. these cards are numbered to the season represented, so in the dodgers' case that means 1955

the only card not included was jackie robinson's, but a quick online purchase later, and that was remedied

in addition to the 1955 dodgers, the teams in the set are the 1954 giants, the 1957 braves, the 1960 pirates, the 1961 yankees, the 1967 cardinals, the 1969 mets, the 1970 orioles. the 1974 a's, and the 1986 mets. the mets are the only team to show up twice, and i think roger maris and gil hodges are the only two to appear for more than one team in the set.

i had a couple of these retrofractors in my collection already, but was excited to complete the set so easily. they look pretty sharp in person, and are similar to some of the bowman heritage parallels from around the same timeframe. i had hoped that there would be a sequel to this set to include other super teams, but so far it's been a one and done.

i am glad that i signed up!

in my mind there is really only one law of trading (as long as you assume that trading means both parties actually send cards to each other), and it is similar to the golden rule: swap cards that are commensurate with your trading partner's expectations. want to trade by book value? that's fine, although i can't recall the last time i entered a trade like that. blind trade? that's great, but first time blind traders should have an idea of expectations. more often than not, the trades i am involved in are of the ongoing back and forth variety in which we figure things will work out in the end. those are the best kind of trades, and they speak to the quality of trading partners we typically deal with.

back in april of 2020, i commented on a post at my sports obsession in which jeff asked for trading partners for his cousin who collects braves inserts and parallels. by then, (like most) i was working from home and paying more attention to my collection than i had been during the previous year, so i figured why not swap some cards. indeed.

since then, kevin and i have sent cards back and forth 3 or 4 times - braves for dodgers. the haul has been amazing. hundreds of cards including short prints, inserts, variations, parallels, game used, and autographs. here are shots of a couple of the boxes i've received:

i took the time to scan some cards from the third box i received, so hold on

some good stuff here, including a 2008 topps allen & ginter chad billingsley bazooka back and a carl fuillo relic

more cool stuff, including a 2017 topps holiday cody bellinger rookie

just a bunch of parallels and variations and what not. i had a lot of fun going through the cards that kevin sent.

one card that arrived in the first box that really had me scratching my head was this one:

here's the back:

i had never seen one of these before, despite thinking i had all of the dodger cards from 1993 stadium club. i had no record of a "pacific terrific" insert being available, but then it all made sense when i found that this was actually the "superstar duos" insert - the same insert set that topps revisited in this year's stadium club release.

i am hoping to get another package from kevin at some point - i am glad i signed up to trade!