topps overcorrected a bit

after missing out on a team break for the inaugural release of topps chrome platinum anniversary in 2021, i joined a team break of the 2022 release, and was able to complete the dodger team set a couple times over while also finding a couple of parallels for my collection. in 2024, i joined a smaller break of the 2023 product, and came away with some decent cards to kickstart my team set building effort. there was no chrome platinum anniversary set released for 2024, allowing topps to actually align the card design with the platinum anniversary of the year that it was released. 

this has always been my biggest beef with topps heritage. starting in 2001 with the 1952 design seemed misaligned to me at the beginning, and soon thereafter led to an annual annoyance around 50th anniversary buybacks that aren't really 50th anniversary buybacks. anyway, the 2025 release of chrome platinum anniversary would feature the 1955 design in a satisfying act of synchronicity, and that pleased me. however, it wasn't until the middle of 2026 that the product was released.

regardless, i was looking forward to the product, but unfortunately my team break success was pre-ohtani, and with the 2025 release, the prices for dodger slots in breaks has been way more than i was willing to pay. instead, i've been building the base team set through a steady stream of sportlots orders.

the first card to arrive was tyler glasnow's

and it was sooned joined by nine others

chan ho park's baseball card resurgence was a big part of 2025, and it's nice to see kirk gibson get some dodger cardboard time.

here are a trio of rookies from 2025

with river ryan being the odd man out as he is no longer a dodger due to the tarik skubal trade.

roki sasaki

was part of a single card order from a seller who is losing money on shipping.

most of the cards came as part of larger orders where i found a couple of dodger cards from other sets in order to maximize my shipping cost investment. these two cards - hideo nomo and blake snell

were from one such order. as was hyeseong kim's card

topps has brought orel hershiser

back to us collectors, and i appreciate that. i do wish he had more cards like this and fewer autograph only releases though. it seems he has been given the steve garvey treatment in that regard.

here's a trio of dodger legends that arrived together - jackie robinson, sandy koufax, and clayton kershaw

and here's a couple more - duke snider and mookie betts

jackie, sandy, and the duke were all in the original 1955 set, so it's nice to see them again 70 (71) years later.

i did not have adrian gonzalez

dodger cards on my 2025 or 2026 bingo card but i will accept it.

the last card i needed was ohtani's

and it was easily the most expensive with an all-in cost of just under nine bucks.

the card that i was most excited about was dusty baker's

now that he has retired from managing, i hope we see more cards of him in dodger blue. i even scanned the back

baker is my go-to on baseball reference's immaculate grid for dodger silver slugger, and i've used him for gold glover as well when garvey was already used in a different category.

that baker card, as well as this betts/robinson 1955 double header insert

would both be candidates for my favorite dodger card of the year except for the facts that this is a 2025 release (officially) and that there was a 2026 topps card of clayton kershaw to wrap up his hall of fame career.

i used ebay to add that insert above as well as the full six card 1955 world series dodger team set

the cards above, and the backs below, are shown in numerical order even though that means they are not in chronological order. you will see what i mean, as roy campanella's card starts with game 3 

no johnny podres card for game 7 which is a surprise, but pee wee reese is an acceptable substitute.

back to game 1 with jackie

duke's exploits in game 4 lead into gil hodges' in game 7

and to round out the team set, topps fit in another koufax card even though he wasn't part of the world series. again, it's something that i am a-ok with.

there are a multitude of parallels for these cards, as well as the autograph subsets. i've held myself to only picking up a couple of those. steve garvey is always a target, and so i added his base auto

with a very basic back

as well as his aqua refractor 

numbered to 150.

i've noted that a number of resellers don't understand the concept of a facsimile autograph that is part of the 1955 card design. there are so many listings for "auto" cards that are just base cards or base parallels. 

to date, the only base parallel that i have purchased is this platinum toile gold parallel of hideo nomo

it's numbered to 50 and is a nice example of the excess that has defined parallels of chrome platinum anniversary to date.

last minute update! earlier today i received these three blue prism refractor parallels

after purchasing them as a lot for about a buck apiece.

it's probably too much to ask for 2026 topps chrome platinum anniversary featuring the fantastic 1956 topps design to actually be released in 2026. hopefully topps gets things on track at some point.

the finest cards not from the national

i saw fuji post a blog bat around yesterday about not being at the national. of course, chris started the bat around asking folks to post show worthy cards in lieu of attending the convention in chicago. well, i am not going to go that route, but i will share some of the recent additions to my collection that i might have found at the national if there were ever a return of bargain boxes.

these cards from 2026 topps finest are the newest to my collection, arriving in yesterday's mail.

yoshinobu yamamoto topps team finest insert

kirk gibson finest timelines insert

love this card. seeing another vin scully call on a card - especially one that features this moment - is fantastic. the back also shares jack buck's call

which i am fond of as well. i also added the card in refractor fashion

as denoted on the back

as you might suspect, i actually purchased two of each of these so that i could put one set in my dodger collection and one in my collection of cards featuring games that i have seen in person.

also in the mail with those cards yesterday was this 2025 topps update insert

commemorating a first pitch at dodger stadium by this gentleman name miyavi.

another card i received last week was this 2021 topps archives snapshots mookie betts 

it completes the (small) dodger team set for me.

the remainder of these cards are ones that have been in my scanned folder for a while, and it's time to show them on the blog. nothing big here, but the types of cards that i've found in dig boxes at past shows.

2004 fleer greats of the game blue parallels of davey lopes

and johnny podres

2013 topps triple threads amethyst matt kemp

and amber duke snider

2014 topps opening day blue foil parallels of carl crawford and hanley ramirez

2020 topps museum collection base and copper parallels of cody bellinger and sandy koufax

2023 topps update royal blue alex vesia

2024 topps cosmic chrome mike piazza galactic greatness insert

2025 topps holofoil parallels of joe kelly 

and justin wrobleski

that scanned differently for some reason

2023 topps clayton kershaw flagship insert

are those cards considered inserts? regardless, it's a bit odd to not be finding many new kershaw cards now that he is retired. chasing his stuff was a big part of the hobby for me the last 18 years so this year has been a bit of an adjustment. thankfully, there are still a ton of his older cards that i can chase. 

2024 topps allen & ginter minis of kershaw

and freddie freeman, 

although freeman's is an a&g back

2025 topps allen & ginter minis of freeman

and blake snell

and this time, snell's is the a&g back

i did find some bargain boxes at the national last year, but the primary reason i made the trip was to do the meet & greet with steve garvey and get a photo and autograph from the first baseman for the team of my youth. it was a great success as far as i am concerned. 

no in person autographs for me to show, but i'll share this 2025 topps museum collection sticker auto/triple relic card of the garv

that is my lone example from the legion of auto-relic cards that he had in the set.

there is a chance that i make it to the national next year in detroit, but regardless, i am sure i will have some cards to show off should this bat around be around again next year.

got yer ginter?

i already shared the 2025 topps allen & ginter cards that i found in a hanger pack courtesy of a nearby lcs, but i also picked up some cards from that release from other sources.

i had preordered a couple of blasters directly from topps, and they arrived shortly after the official release date. i'll show some of the more interesting (to me) cards, including the livvy dunne base card

it's reminiscent of years gone by when kate upton made an a&g appearance. it's nice to see topps expanding the checklist a bit to include players like cesar tovar

who haven't been seen in modern releases for a while. i sort of understand orel hershiser reappearing in card sets this year as he has a hobby connection, but to see the late tovar included was a very welcome surprise. he has a ssp card in 2025 topps series 2 that celebrates his feat of playing an inning at every position in a single game, so perhaps having him in more sets is tied to that appearance.

old stalwarts remain on the checklist, of course, including mr. cub, whom i found in miniature variety

along with george brett

complete with that particularly overused image.

there were more minis to be found - here's one of the other non-baseball subjects

it's actress emma roberts, and it's an a&g back

i understand that she is a collector? or at least a breaker?

caden dana is a baseball player, and this is his gold border mini parallel

some of the insert sets are minis, as usual. here is the new mexico state bird

beep beep.

and here is a jellyfish

i found some high numbers, including a vladimir guerrero 

for my player collection

as for dodgers, i found hyeseong kim

and river ryan

ryan's card seems to be more yellowed than kim's. i noticed this with a few of the cards but i don't think it's a thing.

i had good dodger mini success - finding mookie betts' black border parallel

plus a kirk gibson chrome parallel

and a shohei ohtani 1889 n22 mini

the omnipresent wicked curves inserts including don drysdale 

and yoshinobu yamamoto

while i found freddie freeman and the rest of the 2024 dodgers celebrating their sweet victory

over the yankees in 2024.

that wasn't enough for me, so i bought a couple of lots of ginter off of ebay. with the first lot, i wound up with more dodgers

i included the duplicate of ryan to show how different his card stock looks. gary sheffield was a bit of a surprise to me but i'm always glad to see cards like his show up assigned to the dodgers.

i also found hideo nomo's mini parallel

plus a black border of kim's.

i now know that kentucky's state bird is the cardinal

is it missouri's? well, i don't have that card but it is not.

the other lot i purchased was focused on the full size inserts, and i added the sandy koufax and don sutton wicked curve cards to my collection

i spy jim gilliam behind koufax and i am pretty certain that steve garvey is the player behind sutton. so certain, in fact, that i've added a second sutton card to my collection to document the nl iron man in the background.

as for the sweet victory cards, i added the kirk gibson dodger card celebrating game 1 of the 1988 world series and the mookie betts (with an uncredited cody bellinger appearance) card that celebrates the dodgers' 2020 title

here's the back of gibby's card

of which i have added a duplicate to my "games i attended in person" mini-collection.

gibson also got a card for his 1984 world series title

and, to show that i can have non-dodger related content, here's scott rolen celebrating the cardinals' world series title

in 2006.

not all of the cards were world series victory celebrations. this andruw jones card

celebrates the 1999 nlcs. most are world series focused, however, and this chris sale card

lives in my name/number on the back collection even though he's standing in dodger stadium celebrating the 2018 dodger loss

a couple of wicked curves cards that struck my fancy were bert blyleven's

he's got good stirrup game, and catfish hunter's

i miss the oakland a's.

once i got through those lots, there were still some cards i wanted, so i went to sportlots. i bought orel hershiser's wicked curves card

and blake snell's

as well as that of clayton kershaw

along with his silver portrait parallel

i also needed kershaw's base card

plus several more dodgers, like mookie betts

and gibson

and these four

and these three, too.

and, if you think i have brian cranston's card in my dodger collection...

...you're gd right.

finally, i used ebay again to pick up some of my primary targets from this set. steve garvey has both a mini framed relic and a full sized relic, so here they are

along with the gold filigree parallel of the full sized relic

one of the lots i bought inlcuded one of the garvey full size relics, so i was able to add one to the dodger collection which doesn't happen often. buying multiples of the same card to feed different collections may seem strange to some, and i would expect there are a lot of folks looking at me like this

but my enthusiasm for doing so is not curbed. keep on collectin'!