tell me you made a mistake without telling me you made a mistake

a few weeks ago, i showed this card

in a post that was all about 2024 topps chrome update. it's a ketel marte all-star game insert, showing him turning two in the 2024 midsummer classic. not too long after that, i put in a claim on thorzul's annual "trade me anything" event for this card

which is marte's all-star game card from 2024 topps update.

as we all noticed when update first came out, these inserts were sneaky in that they still referenced the team each player plays for rather than the all-star game itself. i noted that rafael devers and mookie betts both had all-star game inserts that were only discernable as such by looking at the card backs. with chrome update, topps corrected that mistake, and the inserts are easy to spot even when the player featured isn't in the all-star uniform.

here is mookie's chrome all-star game card, along with the other dodgers

including shohei ohtani

i picked these up as part of a dodger chrome update lot to further my team collecting cause. also included in the lot was this freddie freeman all-etch insert

and a couple of rookie 1989 inserts of yoshinobu yamamoto and andy pages

anyway, back to thorzul's trade, it was anything but a mistake. even though he had no extra dodgers to offer up this year, i found some cards to acquire in addition to the marte double play turn including these four all-star inserts.

while i prefer that teams wear their own uniforms in the all-star game, i didn't mind these as they were throwbacks of a sort to the 1933 all-star game duds worn by the national league team. i also requested two of the 1989 inserts - ozzie albies

and mickey mantle

i'm always on the lookout for braves inserts to add to stacks for sluggo, and it's nice to see mantle back on topps designs after being monopolized by panini for the last few years.

i also asked thorzul for some cards left over from last year's trade me anything and wound up with dwight gooden's all aces insert

i am tempted to use this card for the william shea memorial but i think i will stick with the card that was produced in real time.

here's cody bellinger's gold parallel from last year's update

i was tempted to continue collecting bellinger cards after he left the dodgers, and i even contemplated doing the same for walker buehler starting in 2025, but i decided that since i didn't do that for matt kemp i wouldn't do it for belly or buehler. in fact, i think i would reinstate my orel hershiser or steve sax post-dodger pcs before i take up any other player - unless clayton kershaw were to go somewhere else.

i also asked for a couple more yankees - bernie williams' 1988 silver pack card

and don mattingly's mvp medallion thing

it seems that topps has gone away from these manufactured medallion and patch cards, but they sometimes turned out ok. award retrospectives make more sense to me than batting helmets, for example.

this was a great way to close out the year by receiving cards from thorzul. can't wait for the next installment of trade me anything!

because the greatest glove of all

it's almost valentine's day and love, or in this case, glove, is on my mind.  i am really trying to give leaf a wide berth - certainly wider than i gave it in recent years - but i have not been able to completely ignore their baseball and multi-sport releases. part of my problem is that they issue cards like this one

when coupled with a very reasonable buy it now price, makes it difficult for me to ignore. that's a steve garvey "great gloves" die-cut sticker auto from 2024 leaf press pass, by the way. it's numbered to 10, and i happened to get the jersey number match

sure, it's a ripoff of sorts of topps' hands of gold inserts from 2000 but i don't mind. garvey won four gold gloves in a row in the mid-1970's, thanks in large part to his ability to scoop balls in the dirt and having an official scorer that was more inclined to assign errors to bill russell than mr. clean. i recognize that garvey didn't have great range, and he was fairly reluctant to throw the ball most of the time. still, he won the hardware and i assume that is the basis for his inclusion in this set.

there are a couple more leaf cards i couldn't pass up. these had more to do with the low prices put on them by the sellers - 2024 leaf metal monumetal pre-production proof 1/1

this is some sort of gold crystal version. there are a lot of these out there with different background treatments and so aren't really scarce. the back is really weird.

you can tell that leaf doesn't think too much of these as they are sealed in top loaders instead of one touch holders.

here's another one - this time it's garvey and steve sax with a dual auto pre-production proof 1/1

the seller didn't even take a shot at trying to define what this background was. the back is different, too

interestingly, this dual auto is from a different set than the garvey/sax dual auto i showed off last year. i guess with stickers you can do a lot more. 

things have continued into 2025 with leaf issuing their metal sports heroes set (which seems to be an autograph set) with more of these pre-production proofs. i bit on a couple, including this red flood all decade teams 1970s steve garvey thing

i say thing because leaf either didn't bother with a sealed toploader or the seller took it upon themselves to break it and so i can see that these are really flimsy pieces of film. this one is thin acetate - here's the back

i originally swooned over seeing a bunch of the "we are the champions 1981" proofs, but limited myself to buying just one of the 22 (!) versions this seller somehow obtained. i chose the one that was listed as the "superfractor" proof

put steve garvey, ron cey, and bill russell on a card on i am there for it every time. this one is maybe double the thickness of the other, but still flimsier than a regular card. here's the back

which fits with the others i showed earlier. the actual cards are encased in a one-touch and look like this

with actual backs

that is the pink crystal version of the card, and it's numbered to 5. oddly enough, this card does not show up on the checklist - instead there is a four player version that also features (not davey lopes, unfortunately) steve yeager. i haven't seen the yeager version yet, but he's on another card so i know he has stickers in the set. anyway, assuming the parallels of this one are consistent with the rest of the checklist, there are 20 different versions of this card, and i went out of my comfort zone to grab this one.  maybe the prices will come down but it is nuts out there for these multi-player autos right now.

there are other cards from this release that have intrigued me. jerry reuss is included on some multi-player cards, as is dodger double dipper joe ferguson! a certified joe ferguson auto is pretty tempting, but i will continue to try to ignore leaf releases until i can't. such is the curse of collecting.

fifty cent frenzy at the card show

after missing the last few cards shows of 2024, i made it to the monthly twin cities club show in january. i usually get there a few minutes early and am in the lobby when they open the doors. this time, i got there about five minutes after the doors opened. that made a difference.

one of the regular sellers who has some pretty good bargain boxes was there for the first time in a while, at least the first time he and i were at a show at the same time. by the time i walked to his table, there were already half a dozen guys digging through his fifty cent boxes. one of the guys had abandoned his own tables to dig, and didn't seem to mind missing out on sales while he tore through a box.

i was able to get in at a corner of the table and made sure to ask who was where in the box closest to me and i started going through. i wound up only being able to get to about half of the boxes but still came away with a lot of cards for my collection and the collections of others. the only bad thing about my approach was that once i had an unwieldy stack going, i asked the seller to stack them behind the table and told him to go ahead and start counting. this lack of forethought kept me from double checking some of the cards i had pulled, and so i wound up with a short stack of dodger cards that i really didn't need.

anyway, here's a taste of what i found from these boxes:

i had never seen the 1992 ud minors todd hollandsworth card before - it's an insert - but i was pretty sure i had the jeff shaw own the game card from 2002 and the 2017 topps chrome bellinger rookie, but i set them aside anyway. i was positive that i had the 2022 topps uk clayton kershaw insert but figured someone out there might want it. the others were all cards i needed. 

i was able to feed my vladimir guerrero collection with a couple of cards, including a 1999 upper deck retro and 2004 fleer ultra insert

the retro card is numbered to 1000.

i found a new double play card, too.

that's a 2020 topps robinson cano 1985 35th anniversary insert, blue parallel.

as you can likely infer from those scans, there were inserts, parallels, oddballs, and some base in the boxes. tons of 35th anniversary cards 

and silver pack cards 

and parallels for sure.

his boxes are usually good for at least one variation card, and this was no exception

that's a photo variation from 2016 topps update jameson taillon card.

i will bite every time i see an all aces insert - this one is from 2023 topps update

and features zack greinke, who i have a soft spot for. that is a nice looking insert set, but i am still not officially chasing it.

there were some old school inserts that i grabbed, too, like this barry bonds insert from 1996 topps chrome

a tony gwynn insert

from 1999 fleer tradition and a textured greg maddux insert

from 2000 fleer ultra

the biggest surprise i had when i was going through the cards - this was after i had purchased the stack - was this one from 2024 topps series 1

that's an umbrella parallel, or maybe a rain umbrella parallel, as there were different umbrella parallels in series 2. anyway, the card is numbered to only 10

it's a lame parallel, but still.

the next stop i made was at the seller who has dime boxes under his table. this time, there was a quarter box as well as a dime box, but there were two other people trying to get at them. i was able to join in once they were clear of the quarter box, and then i made my way to the dimes. here are most of the quarter box cards i pulled:

the only dodgers i took from that box were these jackie robinson and mookie betts cards

from 2024 topps allen & ginter.

here's some of the 190 cards i took from his dime box:

this was the first time i saw these 2024 ginter oregon zoo inserts in person. i was enthralled.

2022 topps 206 pairing of gary sheffield and gil hodges

i might have passed on these, but i just picked up a few mini ultra pro sheets so i knew these guys would have a good home in my 2022 dodger binder.

2023 topps chrome update will smith all-star game insert

after making the 2022 cards like this a priority, i slacked off last year.

2024 topps update blake treinen royal blue parallel

i will take any dodger parallel for a dime.

2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary pee wee reese

this is a base card, but it's one of the few i still need(ed) for the team set. not sure if and when the 2024 version of this set will be released.

here's a smattering of some other dime box cards

that 1995 bowman calvin "pokey" reese does look like it was signed by pokey himself, and i will help myself to a 1979 topps bump wills error card for a dime all day long thank you very much.

here's another vladdy i was able to add - 2023 topps black & white

plus a dodger stadium card from 2023 topps stadium club

this is giancarlo stanton hitting a home run in the 2022 all-star game. i get a kick out of this big moment happening while the marlins guy is looking at his phone.

two more dime box cards to show and then i will move on. this is a 2012 topps chrome orange refractor troy tulowitzki parallel

and a 2017 topps chrome dee gordon prism refractor parallel

that fit into my double play collection. bonus for ichiro running around in the background of gordon's card.

next up i stopped at a table that was packed with cards separated out by sport and many by player. i mean, when's the last time you saw raul mondesi cards tabbed out specifically? i didn't spend a lot of time but did grab four cards from this seller for a grand total of $11.50. two were keepers for me - a 2002 fleer authentix paul loduca ripped jersey insert/parallel

and a 2001 topps archives ron cey autograph

the cards were heavily discounted, so the loduca was $0.75 and the cey was five bucks. the other two cards i bought were from the same two sets just of different players/teams and i hope to hand them off to my intended recipient in person later this year.

i wasn't 100% sure whether or not i had the cey card already, but it turned out i did not. i was aware of the large number of dodger autographs that were available in this set back in 2001 when i was chasing after the base set (the box i bought included a bob feller autograph that i now have in my hall of famer collection), but i guess i didn't seek any out on ebay which was really the only source available to me back then. i may prioritize these autos now.

one of my goals for the show was to find some 2024 topps archives singles and parallels, and i did just that when i stopped at a regular seller's table. he always has newer releases broken out for set collectors and he had archives. he listed them for sale as a quarter for loose and fifty cents for sleeved cards. i found two of each and went to give him $1.50. at that point the guy said that archives hadn't been priced yet. i showed him his sign and he said that he shouldn't have put the cards out. now, i could probably find the four cards i chose on ebay/sportlots for not much more than $1.50 but he was determined to get more from me than he had listed the cards for so i told him to pound sand. this is the same guy i ran into once a few years ago at a local target where he was pack searching. i've bought singles from him before but will probably shy away from now on.

my last stop was at one of the vintage bargain box sellers, and i wound up achieving one of my other goals for the show by adding to my 1955 bowman set build. those cards will show up in later posts as i continue to show off my progress on the set.

in all, it was a decent show and i spent almost 200 bucks which might be the most i've ever spent at one of these shows. plus, i was able to talk with brian from highly subjective, completely arbitrary at a couple of the tables, and we exchanged some cards although we didn't snap a photo of our wallet cards. i will share the fantastic stuff he handed over to me in another post.

ps - i didn't pick this card up at the show, but i've had it in my scanned folder for a long while now.

that's jeff torborg's 1978 topps card, and i made the decision a few months back to go ahead and put it in my dodgers binder since he is shown as a dodger in his playing days photo. torborg passed away a couple of weeks ago, and as one of the first former dodgers i was ever aware of, i felt an impact from the news and wanted to be sure to acknowledge his passing here.