it's been a year

another trip around the sun for us and for my favorite player, steve garvey. today he celebrates his 77th birthday. that's as good a reason as any to show off a bunch of garvey cards i've added to my collection this past year - ones that i haven't posted previously, anyway.

i will kick things off with one of the few padre offerings in 2025 products

that's a 2025 leaf metal savage autograph. it's a sticker auto, but the card is die-cut and unique enough that i went for it. it's numbered to 10 as seen on the back

and i think "savage" sums up 2025 for a lot of people.

this is the oldest garvey card i picked up in 2025

it's a 1976 hostess twinkie card - recognizable by the black bar on the back

this was an upgrade for the version in my dodger collection which had very little of the black bar showing.

i snagged a couple of after market garvey autographs to help fill out my collection - 1981 donruss

1981 fleer

1986 topps glossy all-star

there are a few other cards of his that i wouldn't mind adding to this ttm/ip collection, but it is by no means a priority.

certified autos (and relics) were a big part of garvey collecting this year, of course. here's a 2009 topps sterling career chronicles auto relic quad numbered to 10

i picked it up in february. here's the back:

if only garvey's career ops were closer to his postseason ops, he would be in the hall of fame. i also understand that if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.

here's a 2024 topps triple threads single auto jumbo relic 

i picked up in january and a 2024 topps definitive collection definitive autographed relic

that i bought in april. some of this is due to 2024 product not being released until 2025. here's the back:

that card is one of the more paniniesque cards that topps has created, and speaking of panini...

i bought this 2024 panini national treasures legend jumbo lumber signatures card

in june and this holo silver parallel

in august.

this 2024 panini impeccable illustrious ink card entered my collection in october

i wonder if the players were meant to sign the jumbo bat rather than squeeze their autograph in under their photo. anyway, here's the back of the impeccable card

"fan favorite" and "face of the franchise" is right.

here's another autograph i bought in october:

it's a 2024 topps allen & ginter x silver ink auto, numbered to 25

parallels also abound, and i bought some 2024 allen & ginter/allen & ginter x minis

as well as a trio of parallels from 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary. this is the platinum toile white & green refractor

numbered to 99

this is the platinum toile cream & gold

numbered to 50

and this is the platinum toile white & orange

numbered to 25

another numbered parallel i added to some others i already had is this 2024 panini prizm white prizm 

that is numbered to 99

my garvey purchases didn't just feed the player collection, either. i still consider my team collection separate from my garvey collection, and this 2005 topps retired signature black parallel

that i picked up in march can go in the team collection as i already had one in the garvey binders. it's numbered to 54

also in march, i bought another 2023 topps heritage mvp buyback autograph

that's numbered to 74. this is a great concept and it is sad to know that i won't be able to chase a dave parker card like this in 2027 heritage.

of course, there were actual 2025 cards that i bought this year. here are a couple that i've not shown before from the 2025 topps all-star game release. this is the all-star greats insert gold parallel

and this is the black parallel of the same insert

gold is to 50 and black is to 10. as a two-time all-star game mvp, including garvey in this release was a no-brainer, although topps has left him out of other insert sets such as the "perennial all-stars" from 2019. here's the back of this particular insert

yes, 1974 was a very good year for the garv. not to say 2025 wasn't, as i am sure the highlight of garvey's year was meeting me at the national.  with that said, i wish him an even more memorable 78th trip around the sun!

something to look forward to

i was all set for this post to be a nod to blue jays fans and collectors with what they could expect to see in 2026 and beyond from topps until all of the strange and "you might never see that again" plays from games 6 and 7 of the 2025 world series transpired. so, now this post is about cards that i and other dodger fans and collectors can look forward to.

2025 topps chrome world series champions refractor

there are 16 cards in this insert set, but this is the one i wanted most. limited to 50 and, as a result, wildly priced on the secondary market, i had to act fast to buy this one that was undervalued by the seller. here's the back:

these cards were "new" this year and limiting them to 50 copies sucks. i would have loved to be able to complete a set, but there is just no way.

it is possible that topps returns postseason cards to the flaghip set in 2026. i think the last time they did that was 2021 - here's one of the world series highlights cards from that set (it's a yellow parallel)

topps has stayed true to the heritage sets, so there will be singular cards for the world series and the league championship series in the 1977 design next year, most likely.

blue jay fans can look forward to cards like these title clash inserts from 2024 topps dynamic duals

that feature al and nl champs. a shohei ohtani and vladimir guerrero card would be pretty nice.

of course, world series champions are an easy go-to for topps when coming up with inserts, like they did back in 2009 with their flagship and update sets. this one features duke snider

who won a pair of rings with the dodgers.

2014 topps update included another ring focused insert set

this commemorative ring card isn't anything that topps seems to be doing these days, but maybe they bring these back? 

the rings are certainly gaudier these days and would provide some interesting fodder.

traditionally, there have been world series champion relics in flagship each year, although i don't think they were included in 2025 topps. the first year i remember seeing these was back in 2004 and i think they were in update. i pulled a dave roberts relic card which was pretty cool. today, they are less interesting but sort of hard to come by. i added this 2021 topps walker buehler example

earlier this year. it's numbered to 99 which i think is the highest print run of these things. here's the back:

nowhere near as interesting as the johnny podres fake ring card.

this year, perhaps in lieu of relic cards, topps introduced world series champion autographs. i was sure to pick up buehler's

because of his series ending role. here's the back:

the only other two i have are justin wrobleski and tony gonsolin

the buehler and gonsolin are numbered, but the wrobleski is not. i couldn't find any info on non-numbered cards for some reason. the backs are the same as buehler's

these are sticker autos but still pretty pricey. the wrobleski and gonsolin cards were outliers that the sellers put buy it now values between $20 and $30.

and then there are the cards in the future where a world series title is referenced. i picked up this 2025 leaf metal inscription autograph of 1981 world series champion steve garvey

in part because the inscription is "81 ws champs", but also because it's numbered 6/10

garvey also showed up in 2023 topps update with another world series themed commemorative insert set

this is the gold parallel that i tracked down a few months ago. garvey is the guy who gets the most mileage out of that 1981 title, although it would be nice to see some others like ron cey, steve yeager, pedro guerrero, or fernando valenzuela on cards like these.

at least it's nice to see the commissioner's trophy on a card that is sort of easy to find. topps has taken to reserving it in 2025 for semi-rare parallels like a bunch of dodger golden mirror cards. case in point, here's edgardo henriquez's golden mirror parallel

i had to wait for quite a while for one of these - featuring any player - showed up with a decent enough price. here's the back:

henriquez pitched in 3 games for the dodgers in the 2024 regular season, and then 3 more in the postseason, although none of those were in the world series. this year, he pitched in a couple of world series games. i might target his 2026 golden mirror card to keep the set going.

i am hoping that 2026 brings more cards like these, but that they are easier to find. give me a stadium club base card showing clayton kershaw with the trophy like we had in 2021 rather than the golden mirror card we got this year, for example. to the champs go the spoils and i can't wait to add more world series themed cards to my dodger collection in the future!