there's sutton happening here

for what it's worth, every few months i search for don sutton cards. i'm mainly looking for his post-dodger oddballs that aren't in my collection yet, but will still bite on dodger sutton cards too! one of my recent searches turned up a 2019 panini diamond kings 1983 retro signature materials holo blue parallel

for a ridiculously low price, especially as it is numbered to only 10. 

that prompted me to keep looking, and i found some more decent deals.

that's a 2015 panini cooperstown red parallel numbered to 35

and that is a 2004 playoff absolute memorabilia spectrum parallel

this 2016 topps gypsy queen card

is a short print

this 2018 topps tribute card

is just the base

and a couple from 2021 - topps allen & ginter x

and a refractor parallel

from 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary 

you may have noticed that all of the cards above are pre-perm sutton. that's not how i remember him, so let's see some curly hair!

here is a parallel from 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary

it's a yellow ray wave refractor, and it makes me think of corn.

panini has been including sutton in recent sets...

that's a 2024 panini crusade red parallel, and this

is his 2024 panini donruss diamond king insert. sutton was a diamond king as a brewer in 1985, but never as a dodger, so this was the only card featured in this post that i went looking for specifically.

my searching found me looking at 2024 panini prizm cards, however, and i bit on sutton's ruby wave prizm parallel

i stopped short of rainbow hunting, though. at least for sutton.

i couldn't help myself when i saw tommy lasorda's card

from base to ruby wave and various colors and patterns in between.

i wish topps had featured sutton in last year's 1989 35th anniversary inserts, but seeing him in other releases is a pleasure, too.

remember the astros?

earlier this year i completed a trade with bru, whose site used to be call 'remember the astrodome' but now oversees a much more personally named site.  anyway, the trade went so well, that we are in the midst of another one as i type this in early november.

it's always nice to get some brooklyn boys - pee wee reese, gil hodges, and duke snider

all were needs/wants. it was nice to see topps bring gil hodges back in to the fold last year. i see that hodges fan steve garvey has appeared in a couple of releases late this year, which is hopefully a sign of things to come.

i did not buy any 2019 topps holiday cards last year, so i am thankful (i guess) for those i receive in trade packages, like this cody bellinger 

i do appreciate the design of the 2019 holiday cards more than those of previous years.

here's a 2020 panini donruss rated rookie card of gavin lux

lux will turn 23 in a couple of days, so he has time to live up to the hype. it's a bit crazy that there remains a premium on his cards though as he has not looked up to the task so far.  

here are a couple of clayton kershaw cards - 2019 panini leather & lumber and topps stickers

topps left the open fly on the sticker.

here are three cards of world champion max muncy

2019 topps allen & ginter, 2019 topps stickers (back), and 2002 panini donruss. muncy wound up doing better in the postseason than he had in the 60-game "regular" season - he had an obp over .400 in the last three series which was nice to see.

here's a lot of sticker backs from the 2019 topps sticker set - kershaw, aj pollock, justin turner, bellinger, walker buehler, and kenley jansen.

world champions, all! now, i would have preferred the dodgers to have beat the astros back in 2017, but what happened happened. i am glad that the two teams didn't meet again in 2020, because who knows what damage george springer might have wrought.  thanks bru - looking forward to more!

of diamond and other kings

not sure if it was don or russ who came up with the concept of 'diamond kings' for their sophomore release, but i was happy to see the subset when opening packs back in 1982. that year, it gave me an extra card of my favorite player (steve garvey) while opening my eyes to cards that were meant to be art - as in, purposefully using aa painting as opposed to bad airbrushing trying to make an altered photograph look semi-real. remember, at that time, i had seen some stuff like the 1978 topps greg minton card. soon, fleer and upper deck were featuring art cards as part of the base set, and it was not a big deal anymore.

anyway, the diamond kings eventually became inserts and were therefore more difficult to track down. 11 years after their inaugural release, the reigning national league rookie of the year was featured, and it took me about 27 years to obtain that card.

eric karros looks pained. now, i wasn't actively looking for that card until i put it on my most wanted list sometime last year, and i finally added it to a comc or sportlots order sometime later.

2005 was a big year for donruss and their diamond kings, as they issued a huge set with a ridiculous number of parallels.  here's one of steve garvey's parallels that i picked up sometime in the last few months

that is a 'green frame' parallel (trust me), numbered to 50.  here's the back:

glorious text on the back as it mentions the game on april 16, 1983 wherein garvey surpassed billy williams on the all-time consecutive games played list. yours truly was at that game, and i've recently been putting together my "games i've attended" mini-collection. so, you will see more about that game in a future post.

over the last few years, panini has continued the diamond kings brand, and in each of the last two releases, they've included steve garvey on their checklist.  unfortunately, they are limited in their print runs, and in 2019, his cards were of the redemption variety.  i was able to secure three redemptions for two different print runs; the purple, numbered to 10

and the holo blue, numbered to 25

the checklist also notes that there is a "base" version that is unnumbered, but i did not see any of those redemptions hit ebay. this year, the diamond king garvey cards are pack inserted, and there are only two varieties. the purple, which is numbered to 20

and a one-of-one.  as you can see above, i managed to pick up the purple card, but the one-of-one went to fellow garvey collector mrmopar.  congrats curt!

as the title of this post mentions, there are other kings than diamond.  case in point, here is a 2012 panini golden age steve garvey mini card that i purchased

it is the fourth variant that i have, and this one is the 'ty cobb" back variation

i was not sure if cobb was the king of the smoking tobacco world, or if he had his own line of tobacco and it was the king of the smoking tobacco world, but recent (2018) developments have shed light on this topic. apparently, there was a product that featured cobb although it was not widely distributed, nor did it stay on the market for long. so, cards with this particular back are rare.

another type of diamond king to show off are some of the cards i've received in the recent 'diamond 9' giveaways at the diamond king blog!  kevin has been offering up some great cards, and i've been able to send him a few as well.

some of the cards he has sent me include this 1997 topps finest brett butler refractor

super shiny! 

i was also able to claim a 2005 donruss champions j.d. drew parallel

which is serial numbered to the number of time drew landed on the disabled list

kidding, of course. it just felt like 75 times.

another card for the dodger collection that i claimed was this 2011 bowman platinum blake smith xfractor

i have claimed a few non-dodgers, including a 2008 upper deck baseball heroes card featuring vladimir guerrero

for my big daddy vladdy collection, plus a couple of braves cards.  this 2006 topps chuck james black parallel

and this 2011 topps lineage jason heyward stand-up insert

were added to a couple of trades that i've made recently that were borne out of a comment on another blog. i will have a post dedicated to those trades in the future, but it won't do the trades justice.

thanks kevin and don and russ and dick perez, and even ty cobb i suppose. kings all around!

it got dusty in here, and then some

i recently received a couple of plain white envelopes from fellow collectors, which was a nice surprise. as many have noted, trading as of late is not what it had been in headier days, and i am as much to blame as anyone else. i do have some stacks of cards building for a few folks that i hope to send out in the near future.  at any rate, i have already returned a few cards to mr. haverkamp who sent me a 1995 mother's cookies giants dusty baker card

as well as a 2006 topps allen & ginter baker black-bordered mini

for my collection of the left fielder of the team of my youth.

mr. haverkamp reports that the mini came from the national, which made me appreciative that my collection was being thought of as cards were being pulled from dealers' wares, but also made me wonder if there was cubbies markup on the card given the convention was in illinois.  

there was probably no markup on dodger cards out in the pacific northwest, as the team has long since left affiliations in ogden and spokane.  still, kerry from cards on cards was able to find a few cards that i was happily able to delete from my want lists.

here are a couple from 2004 donruss classics - hong-chih kuo and shawn green

and two from 2004 donruss team heroes - paul loduca and another shawn green 

loduca was definitely a hero to manager jim tracy, but i was not a big fan.  green has been in the dodger conversation lately given that cody bellinger has a chance to eclipse his franchise record of 49 home runs this year.

stepping back a year, kerry also sent this 2003 fleer platinum eric gagne card

that was also a need.  gagne may have been considered by fleer as an unsung hero heading in to 2003, but he won the cy young award that year and so received the highest of sung praises a pitcher could receive.

one more card from kerry, and it was a need even though i don't have a want list for 2019 cards.  it's a 2019 panini diamond kings alex verdugo squires insert

verdugo was playing well this season until he got sidelined by injury. his status kind of reminds me of  when matt kemp was trying to break in to the lineup while the dodger brain trust was signing guys like kenny lofton and luis gonzalez to block his path.  the dodgers signed a.j. pollock prior to the season despite already having joc pederson, cody bellinger, chris taylor, kiké hernandez, and verdugo who all play in the outfield. maybe they should have picked up an actual second baseman instead, so that max muncy could be a full-time first baseman?

regardless, i am thankful for the cards!