i bought you back

when i shared my first thoughts on 2024 topps heritage a while back, i ended the post with a look at my boxtopper - willie crawford's 1975 topps card bought back and stamped

and since then i've picked up some others. 

my primary focus since 2019 has been to track down buybacks of the infield, and i've had mixed results. in 2019 (1970), only bill russell had a card and i found one easily. in 2020 (1971) i only found russell's card and i am not sure that there are any buybacks of steve garvey's rookie. in 2021 (1972) i found exactly none of the cards as russell, garvey, and ron cey all had high numbered cards in the psychedelic tombstone set. in 2022 (1973), i found russell and garvey, but not cey or davey lopes who were both featured on three-player rookie cards. finally, last year (1974) i was able to collect buybacks for each of the infielders, although garvey's card was only available as a "mvp autograph" buyback.

this year, i've seen exactly one steve garvey base card offered in buyback form and it went for about triple what i paid for his 1973 buyback two years ago. i did pick up his other two cards from the set - the mvp

and nlcs

subset cards - for what were decent prices. ron cey's card

set me back more than i had hoped, but there were others i saw offered that went for much more so i am not complaining.

bill russell's card

was the first i obtained, and was the cheapest of them all. here's davey lopes' card

to round out the infield. next year lopes will have three cards that could be offered as buybacks - his base, record breaker, and league leader cards - and i will take a shot at all of them.

had i not received crawford's card in my box, i probably wouldn't have allowed myself to purchase any other dodger. but i did and so i did. to date, i've added al downing

von joshua

andy messersmith

manny mota

tom paciorek

and world series game 2

featuring joe ferguson returning to the dugout after his home run. it's worth noting that garvey was just a few feet behind the dodger outfielder when the photo was taken as he was on first base when ferguson took vida blue deep.

that does it for buybacks, for now. i am keeping an eye out for another garvey and i was watching a don sutton card but the seller wouldn't budge from their high buy it now price. i did pick up sutton's "other" box topper - the oversized one

because it features a certain dodger first baseman lurking in the background.

in non-boxtopper news, i've completed the dodger team set, non-sp edition. here are some of the latecomers to my collection - joe kelly

shohei ohtani, who inexplicably does not get the bobby murcer all-star treatment

mookie betts

freddie freeman

walker buehler

bobby miller

and will smith

miller's card seems to have the background filter applied less liberally than the others, and looks more like clayton kershaw's short print highlights card

i still need freddie freeman's short print highlights card, but i did pick up his blue sparkle chrome parallel

along with that of emmet sheehan

and kershaw

i went a bit further with kershaw, addiing his chrome refractor

chrome base and chrome hot box purple refractor

as well. i don't understand why topps decided to shoehorn the serial numbering onto the front of the card this year. it doesn't fit. 

here's another hot box parallel of sheehan

and betts

for good measure.

this is our 25th year of heritage, and each year i look forward to the "then & now" inserts. it used to be because of the dodgers of the 50's and 60's, but now we are getting into the timeline where "my guys" might show up. until they do, there are two dodger cards to collect and i've added them both. 

shohei ohtani shares the card with fred lynn

celebrating the american league slugging percentage leaders

and he also appears with mike schmidt

on a card that recognizes the 1975 national league home run leaders and the 2023 american league home run leaders. reggie jackson led the al in '75 and matt olson led the nl in '23, so not sure why this card exists in this fashion. in fact, both cards celebrate feats achieved by ohtani as an angel so i am even less certain as to why he is shown as a dodger.

a couple more inserts i picked up include betts

and kershaw

mirroring each other as new age performers.

i already showed the dusty baker mini card i picked up, and it came with kershaw's

although i have no desire to complete the team set.

bringing the post back to buybacks, here's a 2014 topps 75th anniversary buyback of jimmie hall's 1966 topps card

i am really looking forward to the buybacks in 2027, but as i mentioned previously there will be some nice ones to chase next year as well.