i could use some help with 2024 topps series 2

i've finally gone through my 2024 topps series 2 purchases and have found that i am missing 86 cards from the set. a couple of these i have, but i've already put them in team or mini-collections. i am hoping that i can finish the set the old fashioned way - through trades - rather than a $30 sportlots purchase.

here's one card that i had a duplicate of, so i put one in my name/number on the back collection

i've kind of softened on carlos correa, i guess. in truth, i am more of a fan of these cards that feature players approaching home plate.

here are the cards i am in need of (also posted at my want list site)

352 trea turner  

357 rhys hoskins  

360 steven cruz  

361 myles straw  

369 brenan hanifee  

375 matt vierling  

380 sean manaea  

381 michael brantley  

385 touki toussaint  

390 jack suwinski  

396 raisel iglesias  

398 enrique hernandez  

399 jonathan bowlan  

400 carlos correa  

403 casey schmitt  

406 andrew saalfrank  

407 pete crow-armstrong  

410 jose abreu  

415 rob refsnyder  

417 washington nationals  

418 nick lodolo  

420 eloy jimenez  

429 michael king  

432 hunter goodman  

441 dylan moore  

449 triston mckenzie  

452 alexander canario  

460 blake snell  

466 sonny gray  

472 jeremy pena  

473 brayan rocchio  

484 chris sale  

493 darius vines  

494 allan winans  

495 jose caballero  

504 michael conforto  

507 jose miranda  

513 triston casas  

514 kansas city royals  

523 jackson wolf  

527 edward olivares  

529 ian happ  

533 milwaukee brewers  

534 t.j. friedl  

536 kerry carpenter  

537 owen miller  

545 zach neto  

546 luke little  

547 drew smyly  

564 jake meyers  

566 andrew mccutchen  

567 kyle hendricks  

568 trevor larnach  

571 john mcmillon  

576 tommy kahnle  

577 joey wendle  

601 trevor story  

602 tyler fitzgerald  

604 toronto blue jays  

605 kenta maeda  

610 zack greinke  

613 jordan wicks  

615 yoendrys gomez  

616 sawyer gipson-long  

624 austin wells  

625 paul dejong  

629 gavin sheets  

632 giancarlo stanton  

635 jt brubaker  

638 cal quantrill  

639 harrison bader  

643 taijuan walker  

647 paul blackburn  

648 anthony santander  

659 ken waldichuk  

666 logan porter  

667 kyle harrison  

673 stuart fairchild  

675 alek manoah  

676 lawrence butler  

677 lourdes gurriel jr.  

681 ivan herrera  

687 nicky lopez  

690 brett baty  

693 carlos carrasco  

700 jose altuve  

i have many doubles (and other cards to trade) so hopefully we can help each other out. leave a comment or send me an email - gcrl AT comcast DOT net.

and now, here are some inserts from the second hanger box i purchased, which was a bit of a snoozer.

jazz chisholm 1989 all-star blue parallel

cleveland guardians royal blue parallel

tommy edman yellow parallel

john mcmillon yellow parallel

alex bregman 1989 

aaron judge significant statistics

bryce harper home run challenge

and a bunch of "stars" of mlb - sal frelick

manny machado

cedanne rafaela

and clayton kershaw

thanks in advance for helping a blogger out!

spot the difference!

with series 2 out, we are at the point in the year where i can post the annual "spot the difference" writeup comparing the topps factory team set to the flagship releases. i suppose there was a chance that i would have to wait for update again this year, but topps was not averse to getting a shohei ohtani card on to the mainstream series 2 checklist and so here we are.

first, i want to show you how the sets are packaged this year

same sort of hanger/blister packaging, but look at how large the plastic blister is! plenty of room to shake things up if you like!

they also stopped printing the checklist on the back, but i think it's been like that for at least a couple of years.

speaking of backs, the guaranteed difference between these cards and their flagship counterparts is the numbering on the back

and away we go, with flagship on the left and the team set on the right!

lad-1 freddie freeman

same. i don't consider the non-foil logo on the team set cards to be a difference. the team set cards also lack the foil that makes the neon look great on the flagship cards in hand, but they do scan more neon-y if you catch my drift.

lad-2 mookie betts

same

lad-3 shohei ohtani

same. when these sets were first released i saw these cards going for more than the price of the set itself.

lad-4 walker buehler

same

lad-5 tony gonsolin

same

lad-6 chris taylor

same [edit - night owl noticed the difference in positions on taylor's cards. this is a truly bizarre variation, as you would think topps would be set on positions from day one. in 2023, taylor played more games and innings in left field than anywhere else. next in both categories was shortstop, and third base followed. he also played a handful of games at second base]

lad-7 max muncy

same

lad-8 austin barnes

same. i thought that barnes was an interesting choice for the team set checklist, especially since that meant that will smith was not included. i am happy, however, that the dodgers have two catchers in flagship. they don't currently have a third catcher on their roster, but my early collecting days brought me to expect cards for three dodger catchers (steve yeager, johnny oates, and jerry grote each got cards in 1978 and 1979 topps).

lad-9 brusdar graterol

same

lad-10 bobby miller

so here the team set does not to with the "future stars" moniker which makes sense because the focus is on the team. not sure i consider this to be a real difference, but i suppose it is.

lad-11 emmet sheehan

same

lad-12 jonny deluca

same. i am sure we will see deluca in update as a ray.

lad-13 james outman

same

lad-14 clayton kershaw

ah! a true difference here with the team set kershaw changing it's orientation and using a photo from a completely different game! i wish the team set would have done something similar with the buehler card

lad-15 miguel vargas

here we have the same "future stars" difference as bobby miller's card

lad-16 michael busch

the team set gives us one last michael busch dodger card to enjoy. unlike deluca, topps left busch off the series 1 checklist, and 'shopped him into cubs gear for series 2. i appreciate that they used a different photo - i assume because it's easier to go from a dodger to a cub when you are wearing the away grays.

lad-17 gavin lux

same

so, really just one significant difference in terms of dodger cards (kershaw) plus what turned out to be a bonus dodger card (busch). not sure if two cards make the set worth it for the casual collector, but for a team collector like me, you bet it does - especially with kershaw involved.

i remembered that i put together a running list of these posts a couple of years ago, and have now updated the list below. 2016 and 2018 are partial set posts, and i realize now i don't even own the team sets from 2017 or 2019. there was no team set issued in 2021. otherwise, click and enjoy!

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2018

2020

2022

2023

i will probably seek out those last two sets and get a proper 2018 post at some point. stay tuned!

the almost daily dodger - steve howe

it's been awhile since i've pulled a card out of the scanned folder purgatory, so let's cleanse the palate a bit from 2024 topps and card shows (you'll see more of that very soon) and take a look at steve howe's 1984 topps nestle card

this card was the last one i needed for the dodger team set from this parallel issue of the full 1984 topps set. 

as for howe, he was, of course, out of baseball for the 1984 season serving his first league wide suspension for drug abuse. eventually, howe got things back on track and pitched for the yankees until june of 1996. i will always be thankful for the 1980 national league rookie of the year for the 1981 season and his pitching in the world series. he is one of the three steves whose celebration after the final out 

is seared into my brain.

that was a good team break

here's "where it's at" with the 2024 topps series 2 team break i joined. i chose the dodgers, of course, and wound up with a couple of team sets - all 20 cards:

i'll come back to the jason heyward card in a bit.

kiké continues to get decent cards. i like that he and rojas got cards showing them as fielders. we don't need more at bats on cards

see what i mean? i feel like i am missing some candids these days.

especially with pitchers, who do nothing but pitch in today's game. 

we could also use more bat flip cards like teoscar there. 

back to heyward's card

it was obvious to me as soon as i saw the card that his number was photoshopped. it was also obvious that the background is dodger stadium. i was confused and couldn't believe that topps didn't use a photo of heyward as a dodger. it turns out that they used a photo from jackie robinson day when the dodgers were wearing a pre-1952 jersey style that didn't have the red numbers on the front. here's the original photo. i am not sure why topps felt they needed to add the red number at all, but they did. just add that to the list of headscratching decisions they make with seemingly every release.

unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the 42 on heyward's back, so even though i know it is a card from an april 15 game, it doesn't go in the 42 mini-collection. i did get the gold foil parallel

in the break, however, so that's nice.

one more note on one of the base cards (at least in this post). kyle hurt got a card! i mentioned this possibility in an earlier post about dodgers who got cards despite appearing in only one game with the team. hurt only appeared in one game for the dodgers in 2023 as the back of his card attests

so kudos to topps for using a photo from his big league debut and not photoshopping a minor league image. this season, hurt has pitched in three games for the dodgers, and was just activated from the 60-day il yesterday so will likely add to that total, leaving guys from that earlier post in the dust.

i netted two gold parallels - clayton kershaw

and dustin may

but no other parallels. i appreciate the photo topps used for may's card. it's one of the few pitcher cards that doesn't show a windup or delivery.

i did ok for inserts though, picking up both the shohei ohtani

and freddie freeman

1989 all-star inserts. freeman was the player my break landed the most as it turned out with both his covering the field

and fantasy favorites

inserts being pulled.

as for the silver packs, i got a bobby miller card

which was a bonus, really.

i did notice that the price for the dodgers in these breaks has increased with ohtani on the team, but it's still a good way to get a good number of cards to kickstart the team collection. i'll probably hold off on any more team breaks until update, however.

h-town card show, part 2

i'm here to wrap up my visit last month to planet houston and the hotel card show i attended. yesterday's post covered my pick-ups from the first few dealers i worked with, and now here is the rest!

the next dealer i found had a quarter box filled with topps inserts and topps on demand releases. i took 37 cards from him, and he charged me 8 bucks.

here's a lot of 2022 topps 582 montgomery cards from 2020-21 set 1 and 2022 set 2

plus six more from 2022 set 3

and here is a pair of red sox from 2021 topps brooklyn collection

i knew that i already had the ichiro card because of the duke snider mural in the background - i had added the card to my dodger stadium mini-collection as soon as i first saw the card online. i didn't realize, however, that i also already had the trea turner card.

i did find some other dodgers that i did need here, too, including this 2022 topps a&g x freddie freeman mini

i had more luck with dodgers at the next stop. this was a guy in a braves hat who said his boxes were 50% off the marked prices. i made away with 48 cards for a total of 20 bucks. highlights included a 2021 topps update dj peters vintage stock parallel

a 2020 topps heritage 50th anniversary buyback of wes parker's 1971 topps card

a pair of color parallels of clayton kershaw from 2021 topps big league

and 2022 panini donruss optic

a pair of jackie robinson short prints

from 2021 topps gypsy queen and 2010 topps national chicle, respectively, and a pair of autographs from a couple of 2019 topps products

of dennis santana. santana most recently pitched for the yankees, and i will admit that i was a bit sad to see the dodgers get to him during the first two games of their series in new york. after the second game, in which santana was pulled and replaced by a position player, it seemed pretty clear his time was up and the next day the yankees dfa'd him. fortunately, like mitch white in yesterday's post, santana was picked up by a nl central team - in his case, the brewers.

i added five more dodger cards from another seller for 10 bucks, and i was happy with that price. i figured that he would be asking for that much for this card alone - 2024 topps shohei ohtani/mookie betts checklist

i think topps is playing fast and loose with what a hug is. maybe their copy editor has some issues.

the other four cards were inserts and parallels from stadium club chrome and topps chrome releases

at least half of which are unnecessary, but i remain the fool that buys them (on the secondary market).

next up i stopped at a dealer who had pretty much only texas team items and dug through a short stack (is there any other kind?) of jose altuve cards for a trading partner who collects the astro 2nd baseman. i found four cards for 2 bucks, and i am keeping one from 2022 panini donruss optic

since it's a double play turn!

then i stopped at another table and dug through a couple of rows of a monster box that was ambiguously priced. i was on my way out so i didn't look too seriously but, did pick out two autographed cards which totaled 10 bucks, one of which was this 1997 bowman karim garcia auto

he gave them both to me for five which was nice. i guess there is also a "blue ink" version of the garcia card, but i will count my collection complete with this one.

i made one more stop, figuring that i should see if i could pick up some 1955 bowman. there was an older couple with some vintage stacks, including cards from the tv set. i picked out a few and offered ten bucks. the toploaders that the cards were in had prices on them, and ten bucks was a pretty good discount. the guy looked at the cards and countered with the full marked price.  i then reduced my ask to two cards which had a total marked price of six bucks and asked if he would take five. he looked at them and told me "six dollars". it was then that i realized he was hard of hearing. i held up five fingers and he said ok and so i was able to cross off st. paul native fred baczewsi and gil coan

from the want list as i work towards completing the set. i'm making some decent strides in that regard but still have a ways to go.

big thanks to houston for hosting a show that coincided with one of my visits. i have plans to be there again, but don't see any shows scheduled during that time which is too bad for me because i really did have a good time.