breaking in a couple of new (to me) card shops

back in mid august, i visited a couple of card shops that i had never been to before thanks to some work related road trips. first, i ventured into wisconsin and found a shop not too far from the minnesota border. it's been open for just over a year and looked pretty promising once i entered the shop.

i told the owner that i was looking to dig through some cards, and he pointed me to a couple of racks featuring monster bargain boxes organized by team! this made things easy for me as i focused on the dodger cards. there was a lot of bowman related product, but also some nice finds. the belle of the ball was this 2020 topps heritage cody bellinger action image variation

but i came away with a bunch more dodgers, too.

2021 topps stadium club chrome cody bellinger beam team

2021 panini mosaic sandy koufax all-time greats orange reactive mosaic

2022 panini prizm albert pujols red prizm

2023 topps chrome update gavin stone youthquake

2024 topps chrome update james outman youthquake

2024 topps cosmic chrome mookie betts launched into orbit

2024 topps chrome mookie betts refractor

2024 topps chrome update gavin stone negative refractor

2024 topps pristine steve garvey squeaky clean

2024 topps jason heyward gold parallel

a quad of 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary dodger parallels

and an in person signed 1988 donruss matt young card

i also chose a card signed by the late joe beckwith

who was my dad's golfing partner in a tournament back in 1980.

i perused other loose singles on the counter, and grabbed a few including a couple of 2025 topps chrome parallels

i don't think either salvador perez or josh bell will get any mvp votes this year, but i didn't leave these refractor parallels behind. i also bought a blaster of chrome that was pretty much garbage with nothing really worth sharing here. meanwhile, a guy was busting a box of chrome at the counter, and i saw him pull a blake treinen world series champion gold refractor /50.

a few days later, i was returning from a work day trip, and stopped at a northern twin cities shop. gallery is more like it. they "don't do bulk" but instead had a small number of vertical cases set at $5, $10, $25, and "as priced". they had a big breaking area and a small office that was set up for online breaks, plus a ton of boxes of various product. someone was opening a box of some star wars release and apparently pulled a couple of decent cards based on the yelling and screaming that was taking place. acting on the collector's folly, he purchased a couple more boxes afterwards. i didn't stick around to see what the results were.

i was not immune to this siren song, however, as i bought a jumbo pack of 2025 topps chrome that was worthless. i figured that the next pack would pay off, and it sort of did with an autograph

but it was still money not well spent.

i should have stuck with sportlots which is where i have purchased almost all of the 2025 topps chrome dodgers that i own (i'll share in a separate post).

i did buy a single from one of the cases - a 2021 topps japan edition clayton kershaw jade green parallel

it's numbered to 75

with so much breaking happening in this store, i was hoping to find some discarded singles but they really did not mess with that end of the hobby.

i did make one other stop in early august at a hobby shop in superior, wisconsin. this was a shop that i had been to several years ago. unfortunately for me, they are now focused solely on upper deck hockey and pokemon as far as cards were concerned. of the three shops mentioned here, i think i will likely only return to the one in wisconsin. go figure.

i bought some 2025 topps, too

i actually pre-ordered a few different forms of 2025 topps from mlb.com and fanatics. the first to show up was a super box.

pack 1:

david festa, matt vierling, lamonte wade jr

joey cantillo, dj herz, isaac paredes

anthony volpe, pete crow-armstrong, brandon lowe

rhett lowder, jarred kelenic, corey seager (stars of mlb insert)

trevor larnach, davis schneider

some initial observations: 

• like everyone else, seeing the foil with these cards in hand was a bit of a shock. 
• the position designation graphic isolates the primary outfield position played, rather than identifying players as just outfielders which is a nice side effect of the design. the multi-position players, like schneider, are also easily represented as such.
• unfortunately, the position designation doesn't really work for designated hitters like larnach. i like the idea, but the design should have figured out a better way to show the dh position without making it look like they are on deck.
• i also don't understand a design that differs so much between the portrait and landscape orientations. team abbreviations on landscape cards but nicknames on portrait cards, except (as we will see) in the case of the athletics. why create a design that does not work for all teams?
• and why have the "future stars" designation eclipse the team name, as opposed to a banner across the top?
• the stars of mlb inserts are really ugly this year. really bad.

here's the card back:

pretty clean. i like seeing "st. paul" on card backs again, even if they aren't the triple-a dodger affiliate this time around.

pack 2:

corey seager, padres team, max schuemann

jake burger, jake cronenworth, brooks baldwin

brendan doyle, francisco lindor, ryan thomson

tommy edman, adrian beltre (first pitch insert), vladimir guerrero jr (stars of mlb insert)

twins/checklist, ryan o'hearn

a few more thoughts:

• first dodger this year is cf-ss tommy edman. his card back lists him as "outfielder/shortstop" though

• the first pitch cards are back with fewer subjects than in 2016 and 2017. it's interesting to me that the team logo was left off the card in this installment, especially with a former player like beltre being featured
• 28 cards in and you are starting to get a sense of how many cards topps printed this year. the number of parallels are astronomical and they are still hard to come by. there are probably more base cards than grains of sand this year.
• i started to realize that with so many uniform designs, it isn't as easy as it used to be to tell which team is represented just by looking at the photo.
• the stars of mlb inserts are still bad

no more full pack scans

pack 3:

luis garcia jr, league leaders - nl wins, ronald acuna jr, rhys hoskins, andres gimenez, ha-seong kim, bradley blalock, charlie blackmon

the retired blackmon gets a final tribute, which is nice. here's his full career stat load on the back:

that's a pretty solid career. blackmon was a guy who i enjoyed having on my fantasy team for a couple of years, but i don't plan to add this card to my final tribute collection.

ryan helsley, pedro leon, george springer (silver crackle foilboard parallel)

the silver crackle foilboard parallel is a super box exclusive. someday i won't pull so many springer cards.

carlos correa (stars of mlb insert), tyrone taylor, evan carter

pack 4:

jp crawford, coby mayo

seeing a coors light ad so prominently in the background gives me older topps set vibes with the budweiser signs all over the place

zach eflin, jose miranda, nick lodolo, bryson stott

a new dp turn for my collection. stott is captured in one of my favorite moments on the diamond.

ben rice, hunter feduccia

i wonder if feduccia bumps austin barnes from the 2025 topps checklist, or if we are going to have three catchers with cards this year.

joc pederson, vinnie pasquantino, mark mcgwire (1990 35th anniversary insert)

luis robert jr (stars of mlb insert), rays/checklist, masataka yoshida

pack 5:

riley greene, mitch haniger, wilber diaz, yainer diaz, nick gordon, taj bradley, reds team, dillon dingler, jose altuve, randy arozarena, josh hader (rainbow foil parallel)

yordan alvarez (stars of mlb insert), anthony rizzo, yoshinobu yamamoto

seeing the future stars moniker on yamamoto's card makes me think that the dodgers haven't been treated to that very often - certainly not in 1987 with the first of the single player future stars cards.

pack 6:

tyler locklear, emmanuel clase, brent rooker, spencer schwellenbach, clayton kershaw

sonny gray, aaron judge (2024 all topps team)

zach dezenzo, seth brown, ezequiel tovar, yu darvish, fernando tatis jr (stars of mlb insert), brooks lee

lee has a good chance of becoming my favorite non-dodger this season. he's from the 805 which is a big plus!

jameson taillon

pack 7:

danny jansen, league leaders - nl average

marcell ozuna, freddy peralta, seth lugo, lars nootbaar, shay whitcomb, alec bohm, drew thorpe, ty france, river ryan (rainbow foil parallel)

julio rodriguez (stars of mlb insert), teoscar hernandez

early rippers assumed that this was one of the "dancing dodgers" super short prints, and i saw versions of this card going for a pretty high price. it's just teoscar's base card, and i am not sure if he is doing the freddie freeman dance or if he has just completed the oblique crunch that was another of the dodgers' on base rituals

amed rosario

i scanned the rosario card because topps skipped his second dodger tenure which was comprised of five appearances. at least it is captured on the back:

he started the 2024 card season with a dodger card in heritage. he was shown as a ray in update, so this is his first reds card.

pack 8:

jordan westburg, padres/checklist, travis d'arnaud, bailey ober, freddie freeman

ryan pepiot, red sox team, zach neto, yankees/checklist,  miguel vargas, francisco lindor (training ground insert)

brooks lee (stars of mlb insert)

cubs team, geraldo perdomo

pack 9:

gerrit cole, tyler soderstrom, rafael devers, mark vientos, angel martinez, jon gray, orioles team, eugenio suarez, tanner houck, jeff mcneil, kyle finnegan, rafael devers (stars of mlb insert), sandy alcantara, josh jung

pack 10:

mauricio dubon, luis castillo, tyler gentry, michael busch, red sox/checklist, spencer steer, brandon marsh, joey ortiz, jose berrios, mariners team, paul skenes (1990 35th anniversary insert)

james wood (stars of mlb insert), league leaders - al wins, jorge soler

there were no duplicates among the base cards, which was nice.

the super boxes also come with a pack of five silver patterned foilboard cards:

ryan mountcastle

carlos correa

ernie clement

league leaders - nl rbi

david hamilton

the super boxes also included an enamel pin. i had a 1 in 10 chance of getting a shohei ohtani pin, but i decided to sell the sealed package instead. pins are hard to store, and i have all of my garvey enamel pins in a padded snap case so it's not like they are all visible anyway.

another super box exclusive is the oversized base card that is hiding being this header card

my super box had paul skenes

and in between the oversized header card and the skenes, was the "companion card" just flying about loosely. i lucked out and found shohei ohtani

here's the back:

the photo and numbering are different from his base card, which wasn't in any of the super box packs i opened, but was present in some of the others i ripped.

i also found a base skenes card

so let's compare it to the oversized one from the super box

fun.

one more card from one of the other packs i've opened, and it's jj bleday

given the card design this year, and the use of location associated abbreviations on landscape cards, i figured that there would be only portrait a's cards, but i was wrong. for the a's, topps removed any mention of location from the backs, and kept the nickname across both orientations. i don't understand why topps would vary the design for the other teams when they could have just stuck with the nicknames on all cards. sure, the diamondbacks would be fairly narrow text, but if you are going to do it, do it consistently. this annoys me so much.

i will probably show some of the cards from the other orders that have come in as part of a future post. outside of the sealed product i ordered, i've picked up a few singles, including river ryan's 1990 card

and steve garvey's "base" 1990 autograph card

this is the second time we've seen garvey on a 1990's topps flagship design, and both instances have occurred within the past few months. the back is worthless

but i hope this trend continues. after so very disappointingly leaving garvey out of the 1988 inserts in 2023 topps, we've seen him in the past two years on autograph versions of the 35th anniversary cards. i hope that he continues to appear in the coming years, as i am really looking forward to the 1991 card design in 2026.