it's still 1978 somewhere

i've been paying some attention to my "1978 master set" lately (as a refresher, i featured the non-1978 flagship cards that i've included in my 1978 master set in this post). as a result, i've tracked down some more cards to add to the effort.

i had previously dismissed the reprints of nolan ryan's 1978 topps card that topps issued back in 1999 because they were reprints. however, i decided to pick up the "finest"

and "finest" refractor

versions because they offer the first glimpse of 1978 topps chrome-ified. 

similarly, i had ignored willie hernandez's 2001 topps archives reserve

and ron guidry's 2002 topps archives reserve

cards for the same reason, but relented because they, too, show chromed and refractored versions of their respective 1978 topps cards.

i then decided to pick up chrome refractor examples of at least one of the 1978 topps design cards from the 2003-2005 topps all-time fan favorites sets. from 2003 i picked up jim rice

and from 2004 it was eric gregg

joining my collection.

i was able to track down a second copy of dusty baker's 2005 topps atff refractor

to complete the three year run. these sets used different photos which was fun to see.  i also picked up a rick monday refractor

for the dodger collection, along with the gold refractor parallel

these are numbered to 25 so i probably won't be able to find one to add to the '78 master set.  also, 1978 topps looks strange with a gold border.

back to reprints, here's a 2014 topps chrome eddie murray all-time rookies insert

and i believe it is the first time that the topps chrome logo has shown up on a 1978 topps card.

in 2021, there were three new 1978 design cards to find thanks to the 70 years of topps insert sets across series 1, 2 and update. i decided to pick up at least one of the chrome versions of the cards and wound up with cal ripken's

this is the second one of these in my overall collection, as this card was also my favorite non-dodger card of the year back then.

with 2022 topps archives using the 1978 design, there were plenty of parallels to chase. i held off for quite some time, but decided to go out and pick up examples of the ones that i didn't already have (where were all but the rainbow foil). so, here's the green border

numbered to 125

the silver border

numbered to 99

the red border

numbered to 75

the blue foil

numbered to 25

the red hot foil

numbered to 50

the orange hot foil

numbered to 15

for some reason, trevor rogers and alex kiriloff were easily available in the parallels when i went looking. rogers is the player whose rainbow foil i pulled from the box i opened as well. i have a spencer torkelson design variation/color swap as well, and so i'm not too concerned about chasing down any of those. maybe someday i will find a 1/1 foil fractor though.

i also decided to add this 1988 topps card to my master '78 set

and then i went out and bought an autographed version of it from 2023 topps archives signature series

i put that card in my "meaningful and just because" collection. here's the back:

it gives a nice little recap of the 1978 regular season, which was the first one i followed wire to wire.

collecting baseball cards that year was a lot of fun, even though there was only topps. i amassed a bunch of doubles on my way to completing a set, and i suppose if other options had existed i would have bought those cards, too. so, i may eventually try to chase down the rest of the 2002 donruss originals what if? 1978 inserts - i already have pops

and i know that chasing these down will help me keep the feeling of being a new baseball fan alive.