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.

1955 bowman complete through 160!

it's been a while since i added any cards to my 1955 bowman set build, but i can still provide an update post as i have a few complete sheets that you haven't seen yet!

sheet 18, cards 137 through 144

the shantz brothers provide the highlight of the page, with bowman's followup to the 1954 topps o'brien brothers card. unlike topps, however, bowman gave each brother an individual card, too. bobby's card is right next to the duo's card in the set, with billy's is coming up later in the set.

here are the backs:

the backs of both shantz cards address bobby's injuries that limited his time following his mvp performance in 1952.

brooklyn dodger don newcombe is on that page as well, and the well loved card you see above was actually in my dodger collection until a few months ago. for this project i picked up another one of newk's 1955 bowman cards

which turned out to be an upgrade, so i put it in the dodger collection and moved the other one to the set. maybe i have it backwards, but that's what i did.

sheet 19, cards 145 through 152

here are the backs:

not a lot of star power on that page, but the backs have some fun information. both bob nieman and sam mele count their biggest baseball thrill as hitting the first home run of their career - in nieman's case he hit one in each of his first two big league at bats! and how lucky was mele to get his home run ball back from the fan in exchange for a new ball? today that would have cost him at least a signed ted williams bat.

sheet 20, cards 153 through 160

a couple of yankees and a couple of dodgers, but they are not side by side as teammates. gil hodges looks annoyed at the creases in his card. sorry gil.

here are the backs:

this page also gives us the corrected version of ernie johnson's card, with the photo on the front matching the player on the back. note that johnson gives another vote to stan musial as the best hitter he's seen (bill klaus on the previous page voted for his teammate ted williams).

here's a look at the ernie johnson error card

that's don johnson of the orioles. here's the back of the error card

which is the same as the correct card.

back to gil hodges, his card status is the same as newcombe's. i found a card in better condition for the set and wound up putting it in the dodger collection instead.

no more creases, gil!

so there you have it. as of now, i've shared exactly half of the set! however, i am further along than that as i need just 47 cards to have all 320. stay tuned!