flip a card

i have a few care packages to acknowledge - some from months back - and i am trying to get back on track!

to start, bo at baseball cards come to life sent me some cards that hit my mini-collections, including this first card that hits two of them. this 1995 upper deck sp john valentin card is very obviously at tatooine card 

but flip it over, and it's a double play card!

perhaps i should flip it in the air and see which side lands face up to determine where to house it in my collection. my friends and i never flipped cards the way i know some of you and many other collectors did. we just played the game on the back of the 1978 topps cards and traded.

anyway, that card lives as a tatooine card but this card from the same set of tim naehring

is a full on double play card for the collection.

i believe i may have claimed this 1999 topps stadium club card of dmitri young

and i did so because it fits in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

bo found a couple of obscure items for my dodger stadium collection - a 1982 fleer stamp of dave collins and a 1986 fleer miniature card of jose cruz

i appreciate bo's eagle eye!

easier to spot is the dodger stadium background on this 1987 fleer limited edition lenny dykstra card

and this 1989 fleer limited edition orel hershiser card

i miss those old field level scoreboards.

greg maddux's 1997 fleer card

also features a dodger stadium background, with a couple of dodger personnel people in the background.

bo didn't neglect my team collection, adding a couple of cards from 1997 fleer flair

those are showcase row 2 cards of brett butler and chan ho park, the latter of whom has made a hobby resurgence in 2025.

thanks for the cards, bo!

in other news, i skipped the monthly card show earlier today. while collecting is a way for me to de-stress, being out and about today for a card show didn't rise to the level of necessity. many of you have expressed concern over what is happening here in minnesota and it is concern well placed.

no national for me, but some card show and shop experiences nonetheless!

even though i am not too far from chicago, i haven't been to a national since the 1990's when it was held in anaheim. i am ok with that, although i did look in to a proxy shopper this year. what i asked this attendee to be on the lookout for were cheap dodger inserts and parallels (assuming dime and quarter boxes still exist at the national) plus a couple of specific vintage items. i exerted no pressure, of course, so have no expectations surrounding the request. i'll just wait and see!

i saw fuji post about a bba started by matt at cards over coffee and figured i would share some cards of my own as part of the exercise. i noticed in fuji's post that he showed off some autograph cards, so i'll show one that has been in my scanned folder for a while - 2022 topps archives pedro guerrero fan favorites

topps hit the nail on the head last year by including petey in the checklist. he has an attractive autograph and truly was a fan favorite for many dodger fans back in the early and mid-1980's. here's the back of the card:

his 1985 season was monstrous.

back to the card show angle, i did attend the local monthly club show back near the end of june. one of the regular dealers who has had some tremendous bargain boxes was there again, and i spent most of my time digging through his stuff. it wasn't nearly as fun as previous shows have been, as it seemed a bit picked over as far as inserts and parallels were concerned. there were a lot of clumps of cards featuring certain stars - frank thomas, ichiro, mike piazza, ken griffey jr, vladimir guerrero, etc - and i picked up a few vladdys for my collection, including these six:

it was nice to find the 2011 topps heritage all-star short print for a quarter, and the two 2007 topps cards weren't regular old base...

...they were the red text back variations

remember that lame deal?

i kept digging and found some 2006 topps rookie of the week cards

i remember getting a couple of these in real-time from a cards/magazine shop in downtown minneapolis back in '06. the brooks robinson is the worst of the bunch since they used old man brooks on his rookie 1957 card design.

it is quite possible that i have passed over this card in dime boxes many times.

it's a 1997 fleer mike piazza goudey greats insert. i always thought these were from 1998, and so there is a good chance i thought that piazza was shown as a met here. this time, i saw the "la" on his helmet and realized his blue jersey was not that of a metropolitan at all!

i did find a bunch of cards similar to those that i was hoping for my proxy to find in chicago - dodger inserts and parallels - and here is a taste

it's sort of weird to me that a.j. pollock was featured in some insert sets, but i guess that's good?

i enjoyed finding a few walgreens yellow parallels from 2019 topps update

and i continue to think it is shameful that russell martin didn't get a true final tribute in 2020.

my favorite find from the show was picked out of one of those ichiro card "clumps"

name/number on the back photo variation from 2015 topps for a quarter? yes please!

fast forward a few weeks, and i stopped at one of the lcs in a twin cities suburb one morning to dig through their bargain boxes and maybe find a pack of 2023 topps chrome. i struck out on the latter, but found a few interesting cards while looking through card singles.

the best one, in my opinion, was this 2021 topps gallery modern artists mookie betts blue parallel

it's not too often you see teeth like that on a baseball card. it's numbered to 99 and i paid $2 for it.

most of the cards i grabbed were from the nickel boxes, including a dodger stadium card - 2019 topps chrome lorenzo cain

and a 2022 topps chrome ben baller josh donaldson

those ben baller cards from 2022 are pretty sharp, but i only found donaldson and one other twin in the box. not sure what i am going to do with it - maybe send it to brian if he's still collecting - but i couldn't leave it behind for a nickel.

the second most interesting card (well, cards, really) i picked up were some sga cards featuring various kansas city royals. this one is going in my name/number on the back collection

here's the back:

i knew the cards weren't from 2012 despite the design because of the inclusion of whit merrifield as well as the reference to the 2015 world series title there on the back. it turns out these are from 2018 and are kcp&l (kansas city power & light) police cards. decent oddball.

while i was in the store, no fewer than five individuals came in to have someone look at their cards and potentially make an offer. three were pretty much turned away, while one guy said he was just looking to see if the store was interested in what he brought in because he had a bunch more at home and was looking to reduce his collection. he noted that he started rebuilding his collection after returning from vietnam and finding that his cards had been thrown out. i inferred that he had a lot of vintage - i think what he brought in were a couple of complete sets of topps football cards from the late sixties plus one from 1970.

the other guy was quickly ushered in to the shop's back office which shares a wall with where i was digging through boxes. i could hear the shop owner explaining the current market and talking about vintage - and then he started talking about a 1952 mickey mantle. the guy had either walked in to the shop with a 1952 topps mantle or a 1952 bowman mantle, but i am assuming topps because that is the definitive "'52 mantle", right? anyway, the shop owner came out of the office a few minutes later and told the other guy working that he had just bought a '52 mantle.

and to think, i didn't have to go to the national to be in the presence of the holy grail!

team set completion to close out the year

it's been a while since i've not had an open order on any of the regular card shopping sites - ebay, sportlots, or comc - but that's where i stand at the end of 2018.  i do still have a few open trades, however i do not expect to see many of them result in return packages sent my way at this point.

there have been a few recent mailers show up from fellow bloggers - fuji sent a couple of cards in return for some stuff i sent him, including this 2015 topps museum collection sandy koufax card

the koufax is now the only dodger i have from this set, so i am a few away from a complete team set.

thorzul's trade me anything netted me some dodger inserts from 2018 topps update, including these cards

that tied a bow on the dodger team sets for the salute and the storybook endings insert sets, respectively.

night owl sent me the card i won in his recent giveaway along with this 2016 topps stadium club clayton kershaw isometrics insert

which is in and of itself a complete team set.

my comc order which had been growing since the summer was ordered on black friday so as to take advantage of the free shipping.  i used this order to pick up a wide variety of cards for my many collections, but at the same time grabbed the last remaining card/cards needed to complete a number of team sets:

1992 upper deck team mvp holograms (darryl strawberry)
1997 donruss elite (brett butler)

1997 fleer (mike piazza checklist)

1998 fleer sports illustrated (raul mondesi, mike piazza, dennis reyes)
1998 fleer sports illustrated then and now (paul konerko)
1998 fleer ultra (todd worrell, paul konerko)
1998 fleer ultra artistic talents (mike piazza)
1998 fleer ultra double trouble (mike piazza/hideo nomo)
1998 fleer ultra rocket to stardom (paul konerko)
1998 leaf heading to the hall (mike piazza)

1999 topps chrome (gary sheffield)
2012 topps gypsy queen (dee gordon)

2013 topps allen & ginter mini framed relics (matt kemp)
2013 topps tribute (adrian gonzalez)

2016 topps allen & ginter (zach lee)

i do not consider the 'no number' julio urias to be part of the team set, although i have my eye on one of those cards at the moment.

same with sportlots, where i have been buying and selling cards for the past several years. i've used the sportlots box option a couple of times now, and have been able to complete a number of team sets.  the latest is 1996 fleer ultra, thanks to this tom candiotti card.

i ordered that card twice. the first time the seller sent the wrong card so i had to order it again.

i had sort of unofficially targeted 1990's fleer ultra sets this past year as a series that i wanted to close out, and i came fairly close with just a few cards still needed for the 1997 team set.

finally, ebay. ebay has done a lot for my collection since i first found out about it in 1999.  i recently picked up a 1970 kellogg's bill singer card

that technically didn't complete my team set because i already had one of singer's cards, but it is encased as a psa 8 specimen, and i didn't want to bust it free.  so this singer now sits with the other 1970 kellogg's dodger cards in the 1970-1974 binder where it belongs.  not sure what to do with the psa 8 singer now.

of course, i also included a couple of new-to-me steve garvey cards in my comc order - both from 2003 donruss signature series

my collecting plan for 2019 is to focus on my steve garvey collection.

i will also check out 2019 heritage as the 1970 topps set is near and dear to me (it was the first set issued before i began collecting that i went back and completed), but i will most likely not pursue a set. dodger cards and hopefully team sets will still be a major part of my collecting in 2019, and i'll probably try to finish up my dodger topps chrome team sets from 1996 on - starting with 2003.  i picked up an eric gagne from that set with my comc order

plus refractors of kaz ishii

and andy ashby.

blue borders can't be beat when it comes to refractory dodger cards!

happy new year!