one of the ways i participate in the hobby that i don't address much is that i sell on sportlots. i say that only to explain this news - wrigley wax is still collecting. i just filled a single card order for him the other day. not sure why the blog went/is quiet, but he appears to be still around, thankfully.
as for more frequent hobby interactions, i attended the mid october mall show. it was a big disappointment from a sports cards stand point, as the majority of the tables were pokemon focused. i did find a few bargains from bargain-ish boxes to keep, such as a 1994 topps ryan thompson gold parallel
2018 bowman's best refractor
2021 topps chrome black
i was able to add clayton kershaw's 2018 topps stadium club beam team card
and roki sasaki's 2025 topps stars of mlb card
to my dodger collection, too.
a pair of 2023 topps allen & ginter mookie betts silver portrait parallels
some other highlights include this 2021 topps stadium club robin yount red foil parallel
these 2021 panini prizm kyle cody parallels
for a couple of mini-collections, and these 2020 topps chrome frank robinson decades' best
and 2025 topps rip night ken griffey jr cards
just because. i haven't seen many (any?) of those chrome decades' best cards in the wild before.
with a hye-seong kim insert, to boot. the only dodger missing from this nickel parade was pee wee reese.
a week or so later, i made an early morning, mid-week stop at a local card shop. early morning as in 8am. this shop opens at 7am on wednesdays which made it super convenient for me. talking to the owner, he said he opens that early on that day to meet some fanatics related hours requirement. it sounds like fanatics might prefer to have you order directly from them based on the barriers they seem to be constructing for these sorts of retail outlets.
anyway, this shop has nickel boxes that i hadn't dug through in quite a while. they had obviously opened some 2025 panini prizm, because there was a row of one monster box filled with it. i grabbed a bunch of these cards including cal ripken jr's
and then found just about a complete dodger team set
here's another nickel dodger, a 2024 topps update james paxton yellow parallel
it's a laborious effort to dig through what is mostly base cards in these boxes, but it's worth it.
a 1994 upper deck all-time heroes manny mota 125th anniversary parallel
and a 2023 topps stadium club jackie robinson red foil parallel
and yes, i do consider that mota card to be a dodger card even though most of it belongs to the expos.
they also have team-sorted quarter/fifty cent boxes. that's where i found vladimir guerrero's 2025 panini prizm dingers insert
the dodgers in these boxes tend to be mostly bowman chrome prospect type things, but there are usually some decent cards within some of the other team slots. case in point:
that's aaron judge's 2025 topps heritage card. except it is also
bat flip variation! good times.
a few weeks later, i stopped at another store in the middle of minnesota while i was driving around for work. they had dollar-plus boxes at the counter and i dug for a little bit. i walked away with a 2024 topps black & white vladimir guerrero jr card
a 2024 topps chrome shohei ohtani all-etch insert
one other hobby participation effort to share - my first completed trade on tcdb! i shuffled off some 1971 topps cards to mattyb87 and he sent me some nice dodger cards:
2024 topps miguel rojas rainbow foil parallel
2024 topps archives tyler glasnow and mookie betts own the game inserts
2025 topps tribute freddie freeman
this one was nice to see - i hadn't seen or bothered to pick up any of these japan-themed cards as of yet.
which inspired me to add sutton's base prizm card to a sportlots order
and that's how you bring a blog post full circle!
2025 topps heritage max muncy green parallel
2025 topps will smith world tour domination
a surprise throw in was this 2024 panini prizm don sutton pink ice prizm
reminder - add your comment to my recent post for a chance to win six non-base cards from the current major league team of your choice. results coming on saturday!
