happy holidays

it's christmas eve already which is hard to believe. i don't know whether or not santa will bring me any cards, but i am happy to report that i have found some dodger holiday variations in bargain boxes this year, including a 2020 dustin may

and a 2019 walker buehler

with 2024 topps holiday being such a departure from the first few years of the product, i thought about ranking the various designs. instead, i figured i would just show the progression through the years

2016

this set came on the scene as more of a weather variation than anything else.

2017

the weather continued to be the only thing differentiating these cards in the second year. the yasiel puig above is the "metallic snowflake" parallel which may make it a bit more difficult to see all the snow.

2018

just brought on more snow. i think most were pretty tired of this set by this point.

2019

the snow is gone in favor of some seasonal foliage and a tablecloth approach.

2020

back to snow, but with the addition of a pine garland. that gavin lux is also a metallic snowflake parallel.

2021

a departure this year with a beaded curtain made of ornaments and snowflakes, plus some candy cane treatment of the borders

2022

still sticking with the snowflakes. that clayton kershaw card is the metallic parallel, so the border is all treated up. the base cards just have the regular white border with the bows and garland.

2023

more snow, but topps switched to "charlie brown christmas" snow instead of elaborately designed snowflakes.

2024

topps finally fully embraced the christmas holiday theme, and continued to build on their flagship neon design. this is really a dramatic departure from previous years and it seems to have been embraced by a large part of the collecting community.

merry christmas everybody!

i am glad that i signed up!

in my mind there is really only one law of trading (as long as you assume that trading means both parties actually send cards to each other), and it is similar to the golden rule: swap cards that are commensurate with your trading partner's expectations. want to trade by book value? that's fine, although i can't recall the last time i entered a trade like that. blind trade? that's great, but first time blind traders should have an idea of expectations. more often than not, the trades i am involved in are of the ongoing back and forth variety in which we figure things will work out in the end. those are the best kind of trades, and they speak to the quality of trading partners we typically deal with.

back in april of 2020, i commented on a post at my sports obsession in which jeff asked for trading partners for his cousin who collects braves inserts and parallels. by then, (like most) i was working from home and paying more attention to my collection than i had been during the previous year, so i figured why not swap some cards. indeed.

since then, kevin and i have sent cards back and forth 3 or 4 times - braves for dodgers. the haul has been amazing. hundreds of cards including short prints, inserts, variations, parallels, game used, and autographs. here are shots of a couple of the boxes i've received:

i took the time to scan some cards from the third box i received, so hold on

some good stuff here, including a 2008 topps allen & ginter chad billingsley bazooka back and a carl fuillo relic

more cool stuff, including a 2017 topps holiday cody bellinger rookie

just a bunch of parallels and variations and what not. i had a lot of fun going through the cards that kevin sent.

one card that arrived in the first box that really had me scratching my head was this one:

here's the back:

i had never seen one of these before, despite thinking i had all of the dodger cards from 1993 stadium club. i had no record of a "pacific terrific" insert being available, but then it all made sense when i found that this was actually the "superstar duos" insert - the same insert set that topps revisited in this year's stadium club release.

i am hoping to get another package from kevin at some point - i am glad i signed up to trade!