good golly mr. molly

this is a story that begins with junk wax but ends with a case hit. actually, i will go ahead and show the case hit in question first. it's a 2002 donruss originals paul molitor what if? 78 card

this is a key card - one of two molitor cards - i need(ed) for my insert set build, and i had forgotten that i was its owner since 2002. how i came to be reminded of that fact is what began with junk wax.

my sister in law has a good friend who i knew had a card collection. she is a yankee fan and i understood that she had some decent yankee cards from the 1960's. a few years ago, i was asked about the collection and how best to sell it. i suggested she contact one of the local card shops that i would take my cards to if i were looking to sell. fast forward a few years and i was contacted again about the collection. this time, i was asked if i wanted it.

it turns out that the collection i was being asked about was the junk wax part - not the vintage yankees part. i am guessing that she sold those but wasn't offered anything for these other cards. my sister in law sent me photos of 1989 donruss and fleer in sheets and i really wasn't too interested. she persisted, however, and i said i would take the cards. 

well, there weren't any bill ripken cards in the 1989 fleer that she had, but i did find a few cards that i needed from the rest of the junk - this 1990 fleer sticker insert

and these 1991 fleer sticker inserts

were all welcome variants that i would not have chased otherwise.

there were a few random cards from 1997 pacific crown collection mixed in, and this eddie perez card

fits within my lurker collection thanks to the appearance of rauuuuuuuul mondesi.

some other sets that were represented were classic junk wax era - 1989 score, 1989 topps, 1990 donruss, etc. there were also two boxes that touted complete sets, one of them being 1996 topps. upon closer inspection, the set was missing one card - glenn dishman of all people - but that was easy enough to remedy

his is card number 410 and there were two 418s so i am guessing that poor eyesight/small card numbers led to the omission of the padre lefty.

the other set was 1999 topps series 1. it was missing one card as well - the mark mcgwire #220. that's the card that has 70 different versions, one for each home run he hit in 1998. i thought that i might have one of these cards with my mothballed player collections, so i headed to the basement to check.

some may recall that i've mentioned having had a large number of player collections at one time. after the 2002 season, i curtailed most of them and put the cards in monster boxes. mcgwire was one of the players, but when i looked through the cards of his i had, the 1999 card was not among them. for fun, i kept digging in the row of the box that big mac was in and pulled some of my molitor cards. there, lo and behold, was the what if? card.

it makes sense to me that i had picked up that card back then, even though i don't recall doing so. molitor was my favorite non-dodger for several years, and one of my favorite players period. i just wish i had picked up his other card from the set back then. who knows how long i would have gone without moving the molitor card to my set build if it hadn't been for junk wax?!

i did pick up a version of the mcgwire card to complete the set. it's home run number 38

hit off of hall of famer billy wagner. i already had the 1999 topps set completed (both series) but couldn't let this one sit one card shy.

in other what if? news, i've made a bit more progress on the 1978 set, adding dave winfield's card

earlier this year. i also picked up a what if? 1984 rated rookie card of eric davis

how fantastic (and highly sought after) would this have been back then? i ultimately decided to purchase the card because pete rose is there in the background, making it another great addition to my lurker collection!

i suppose the lesson here is to not turn your back on junk wax.

pace checker

it's april 6th and shohei ohtani is already ahead of his 2024 home run pace. this card comes from the topps 50/50 shohei ohtani set

and it shows him hitting his third home run of the season on april 8, 2024 at target field in minnesota. here's the back:

not a lot of information - not even the pitcher's name (it was jay jackson) - but it's at least photo correct. that was his 13th game of the season, by the way. this season, ohtani hit home run number 3 on april 2nd - his 8th contest of the year. that homer was a walk-off against raisel iglesias and the braves. he's also 1 stolen base ahead of his pace from last year.

i wound up picking up this single card (two of them, actually) because i was in attendance at the game and i am always on the lookout for cards that feature games i witnessed in person. the other card goes in my dodger collection. there's no chance of me collecting the entire set unless prices come down drastically at some point, so i drew the line at the one game i attended that is represented in the set.

i'm not sure if i am going to get to a dodger game this year, but i do have a couple of games coming up the next few weeks at which i am hoping for something exciting to happen. stay tuned!

more 2025 topps to share

after my first post about 2025 topps, i received a couple more of my pre-orders of pack delivery systems. i believe it was the hanger boxes that yielded the diamente parallels, of which i found a james wood

and i know for certain that it was the fanatics box that had the topps logo parallels

here's a closer look at tyler glasnow's card

i wonder how long until they add the topps throwback logo to a foil parallel set?

regular foil parallels still exist, as in rainbow foil like matt olson here

and there are now even more of the holofoil parallels like jacob degrom's here

i believe in the past few years that these sorts of holofoil cards, in a variety of colors, were all numbered. these are not. here's a fortuitous find for me - an aqua holo parallel

of the dodgers' team card.

here are some more inserts to share. first, 2024 all-topps team paul skenes

and emmanuel clase

the clase card is a pink (unnumbered) parallel

2024 greatest hits showed up in the form of mike tauchman

and james wood

whose stars of mlb card

was also in a pack.

i mentioned last time that i am intrigued by brock lee, so i actually purchased his training ground insert

from a third party seller.

as for dodgers, i found both mookie betts

and shohei ohtani

in their stars of mlb state, and a new jackie robinson insert, in this case it's call to the hall,

is always welcome.

i was very happy to see my silver pack in the hobby box i purchased yield this beauty

and i was equally pleased to find betts' regular 1990 insert

along with yoshinobu yamamoto's

as well.

i added vladimir guerrero's 

to a third party order, along with this card

35 years in the making, we finally have a mike schmidt card on the 1990 topps design. this qualifies as a final tribute in my book.  here's a look at the back with his complete major league stats:

retiring in the middle of the 1989 season kept him off the original 1990 topps checklist (except for a turn back the clock card that had nothing to do with his retirement). donruss and upper deck kept him in their sets, and after missing out on a 2020 (1985) jim palmer card, a 2023 (1988) steve garvey card, and a 2024 (1989) don sutton card, i am quite pleased to have this 2025 (1990) mike schmidt card.

 

speaking of garvey, i added his gold parallel 1990 autograph card

which is numbered to 50

i expect it will end there, however. anything below 50 seems to be incredibly overpriced right now.

three new double plays for the collection - bryson stott, aaron schunk, and xander bogaerts

these cards show a pretty decent sequencing of the ball transfer at the keystone. one of my favorite plays to make on the diamond. 

i set a justin verlander card aside 

for my retired number collection as it shows some of the retired numbers (and no number, in ty cobb's case) on the brick wall beyond the outfield seating. i don't think i had seen it on cardboard like this before, and i have a couple of similar cards as "headers" to the aforementioned mini-collection.

however, i decided that the card would look better in its "true photo" version, so i waited and found one

that was won by a reasonable amount. kudos to topps for getting all of willie horton's and hank greenberg's names within the crop.

and, with the base series 1 set expanded to 350, i was able to knock off that annual get with fernando lindor's card

lindor is the sixth met to hold that number on the topps flagship checklist. only the astros (7) and cardinals (8) have been featured at number 350 more than the metropolitans, and they weren't even a team for the first few years of the deal.

here's the back:

i've updated my flagship #350 have list at my want site as well. the 350 collection is an easy one, but i haven't quite decided on which card will represent 2025 in my topps flagship through the years collection.

i figured i might as well show the series 1 dodger team set, so here goes. first the 12 position players

there are two landscape cards - a checklist and the team card

and then there are the league leader cards. the dodgers, world champs mind you, did not have a pitcher throw enough innings to qualify for the era title. they had no pitcher rank in the top ten in wins or strikeouts, either. they did, however, have a player that fell just .004 short of a triple crown

2024 was only the third time a los angeles dodger had led the national league in home runs, with shohei ohtani joining adrian beltre (2004) and matt kemp (2011). perhaps the oddest dodger card i found in a pack was this one

it uses cards from 2024 to encourage support of your lcs. funnily enough, one guy who works at one of the local shops is under the impression that fanatics would just as soon drive them out of business.

most recently, i picked up an easter egg and a celebration mega box, which seems to be taking the place of big league this year. the eggs are the only place you'll find the holiday foil parallels, like this corbin carroll card

which is much more obvious than last year in having the "base" parallels be leaf patterns. the eggs also have an all-in-one easter parallel - i got marcell ozuna

interesting that they are not in order of scarcity (watering cans, for example, are more scarce than umbrellas, but the eggs are not scarce enough to be numbered at all).

the mega box was probably something i should have avoided, but i did do well with a couple exclusive dodger inserts, such as a mookie betts 8-bit ballers

and a freddie freeman power players

i missed out on dodger gameday drip inserts, but found a few including elly de la cruz

similarly, i found quite a few mascots (no chance for a dodger related card there) including mr. met

these boxes also had exclusive "confetti" parallels, and i found a mike trout version

among all the normal 2025 parallels.

to wrap things up, let's take a closer look at will smith's card

it's not too bad - he's crouching a bit to stay within the frame, but i like the photo that's on the front of the card with this back

a lot more. that is his golden mirror parallel, and as soon as i saw the photo topps used, i knew i would be adding the card to my collection. i waited a bit but still paid a fair amount for the card. here it is:

totally worth it.

with walker buehler joining the red sox, we probably won't get this final out image on any other release (other than perhaps heritage in the world series/postseason subset) and i am glad it made its way to cardboard even if it is a short printed parallel.

i haven't picked up any more 2025 topps cards in bulk, but with some shows coming up i may work on adding some more dodger inserts. hopefully it won't be too long before series 2 hits the market.