the oren express delivers again!

i, like some others here in the blogosphere, have developed a good trading relationship with reader oren, and he recently sent me some fantastic dodger cards. have a look:

no use waiting to show this one - it's a 2015 panini national treasures rookie auto-relic of frankie montas

it's actually a base card in the set, which is shenanigans but then again i am not worried about completing that set at all.

from 2022 topps, here is a corey seager major league materials relic card

in black parallel fashion.

another parallel provided was this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary roy campanella refractor

which is a green wave parallel i believe.

the other cards to show aren't refractors, but they are autographed! former dodger miguel vargas added his last name only to this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary card

and james outman signed this 2024 topps finest card

with what looks like "jet". i am not knocking these guys - they have a lot of cards to sign - i am just thankful for folks like harmon killebrew.

finally, oren included this 2024 topps archives signature series tony gonsolin card

i wouldn't mind having more 2021 topps opening day cards in my collection if they were signed by dodgers!

thanks oren!

so many dodgers on cards

by the end of this post, i will be caught up with trade packages that have been sent my way by kerry, he of cards on cards. i've posted some cards over the last year from some of these mailings, but i had a few remaining in my scanned folder so here we are.

back in november 2020, i received this 2020 topps update keibert ruiz insert

among other cards. it was an exciting card to have as the 1989 design has grown on me in recent years, and ruiz was the dodgers' top prospect. today the card means as much to me as the 1984 donruss sid fernandez rated rookie card. happy to have it in my dodger collection, but beyond that - meh.

more cards from kerry came in march of 2021, including this shiny card from 2020 topps chrome update

i like cards that focus on jersey numbers. there have been a few, such as the entire 2001 topps tribute set, plus various insert sets like this one. 

a month later, in april of 2021, still more cards arrived. i am guessing that maybe i didn't show any cards from this package before now, because i had quite a few scanned - such as...

a 2017 honus bonus chase utley card

sort of the opposite of those 2009 topps legends of the game inserts i showed earlier in the week.

how about a 2019 panini prizm dennis santana rookie auto red, white, and blue prizm

nice!

plus a 2020 topps turkey red insert of jackie robinson

i know kerry was trying to complete this insert set, and i had sent him a couple of cards for his set build.

and then there was this 1994 topps jose offerman

nothing really special about this card other than you don't see a lot of 1994 topps on the blogs. the player name text is reminiscent of 1970 topps and doesn't seem to fit too well with the other design elements. at any rate, this card goes in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

the last couple of cards i will show from this package come from the 1979 tcma the 1950's set.  here we have joe pignatano and gil hodges

along with someone named carmen mauro

i mean no disrespect, i mean mauro was a major league ballplayer for goodness sake, but i had not heard of him before. it turns out that he was born right here in st. paul, and the dodgers were the first of three teams he played for in 1953. he appeared in only eight games for the dodgers, so we should count ourselves fortunate that this card exists.

fast forward to may of 2021, and kerry sent almost a full team set of 2021 topps opening day dodger cards

along with a couple of 2021 topps needs

i like to see dodger world series cards!

also included was this 2021 panini donruss walker buehler name variation

i prefer "ferris".

one more card from that package, a 2021 topps heritage will smith boyhood photos of the stars

nice ymca representation. our local y didn't sponsor baseball or any other sport, although i played a lot of basketball there after school and on weekends.

last but certainly not least, i received some cards from kerry's annual spring cleaning event. these arrived in september of 2021. i had put in for twins as well as dodgers, and would up keeping a couple of cards featuring the minnesota club.

1994 pinnacle dave winfield

kirby puckett's presence on the card puts it in my lurker collection.

2011 topps update michael cuddyer

is a perfect fit for my tatooine collection

2018 topps chrome zack granite

goes in the dodger stadium collection, even though the scan doesn't show the background too clearly.

i picked a few cards from the dodger side of the box, including this 1983 donruss card of mark belanger

just like '94 topps, i don't think we've seen too much belanger on the blogs.

here's a 2011 topps triple threads pee wee reese card

and a 2021 topps stadium club mookie betts virtual reality insert

watching mookie in the 2020 postseason was a treat. such a great defensive player.

not the best segue to this 2021 topps allen & ginter max muncy relic card

but muncy's card does provide a good transition to this batch of cards also from 2021 topps allen & ginter 

in addition to sending me a complete dodger team set of the regular a&g cards (of which that lasorda is a short print), kerry also included those eight silver parallel cards. shiny!

2021 was a great year for dodger cards thanks to their 2020 postseason success. it made the back of allen & ginter cards all the more appropriate

the world's champions, indeed!

thanks kerry!

repack recap

i was super surprised to find a repack hanging in a walgreen's a couple of months ago. actually, there were two, but i only bought one.  here's a post from the lost collector about an identical repack, and i share all of the observations he made about the ambiguity of the contents based on the new packaging.

now on to the cards, presented here in the order in which they were found!

first card was a 2020 topps jesse winker card

i almost wish i were a reds collector in 2020 just to have a bunch of cards showing all the different uniforms they wore during the 2019 season.

a couple of vintage 1968 topps senators

and then on to the mish-mash

big glasses on ernie camacho, and a nice ripken from 1994 topps. i think the 1994 topps set should have been a full horizontal set - i think the design works a lot better that way.

more junk

although one is a dodger

a hit!

i was surprised to see this card in the box. it's from 2019 panini national treasures. not sure when springer wore green (maybe in spring training on st. pat's?) but it is what it is.

more junk

it's interesting to note that the 1987 topps mohoric and davis are from the same set, yet the wood grain on the laminate design is way different. i know the burlap in 1968 topps varies, but i thought that was between different series, not cards from the same series.

more junk

although rickey!

more junk

greg brock hot repack!

the sealed pack inside was from 2021 topps opening day. here's what it yielded:

an ohtani, a parallel, and an insert. it could have been worse.

just last weekend, i saw about six or seven of these at the same walgreens and passed. i did see a different type of repack at the front counter though. it was four sealed packs plus a random bonus card. the images on the box showed cards from topps online releases like brooklyn or montgomery and the living set.  i bought one and it had two packs of 2019 topps series 1 (found a dodger stadium brandon crawford card), 

a pack of 2020 topps heritage, and a pack of 2018 topps series 2. the bonus card was a 2019 topps allen & ginter tim raines card, which i guess is a short print. probably not going to go for a repack again anytime soon!

2021 mini-collection catch-up

so many mini-collections, too little time!

with 2021 topps being released, i took some time to check out images online to find cards that could be added to my various mini-collections. i found a few cards that fit the bill, and decided to pull the trigger via ebay and sportlots. i will say that the memorial patch mini-collection was the one that i was most interested in adding to (i've already shown cards featuring the ed farmer and al kaline patches), but i found a few other cards to fill out a couple of online card orders.

hank steinbrenner, george's oldest kid, was a general partner and co-chairperson of the yankees. he passed away on april 14, 2020, and the team wore a memorial patch on their left sleeves for the duration of the 2020 season. you can see it on gio urshela's 2021 topps card:

that is the rainbow foil parallel, by the way. the yankees added whitey ford's number 16 above the 'hgs' patch for their final game of the 2020 postseason. i will cover that memorial in a separate post.

for just a couple of games during the opening series of the 2020 season, the twins wore a patch for minor leaguer ryan costello who passed away in november of 2019 at the age of 23. the "rc" patch is visible on byron buxton's card below

which happens to be of the gold foil parallel variety.

there are some double play cards in flagship this year, which is always nice.  here's the first one i saw - amed rosario

he will be in cleveland this year as a result of the francisco lindor trade. note the appearance of ozzie albies if there are any braves collectors who look for lurkers or cameos like that. other twin killings i've added include adam frazier

carlos correa

and freddy galvis

there were some 2020 games played on tatooine, too. at least according to these cards - jay bruce

josh harrison

austin hays

roman quinn

and jesse winker

so many shades of sand.

i originally had decided not to add the shohei ohtani card from the 70 years of topps insert set, even though it featured the rarely used 1978 design. my master 1978 set build is focused on players from that era on cards with the 1978 design that could be considered as "variations", such as players with different burger king issues and the willie montanez card from topps zest. i later expanded that collection to include players from the archives and all-time fan favorite sets that showed up with the 1978 design. i was flipping through that binder recently, and saw carlos delgado on a card from 2004, so i figured that the precedent had been set, and i should go ahead and add ohtani, too.

tl;dr - here's the shohei ohtani card from 70 years of topps:

here's one from 2021 topps heritage

that i added due to the appearance of mookie betts on albert pujols' in action card. i am planning to add another one of these to my dodger stadium collection as well.

finally, here's a card i added from 2021 topps opening day

that's the rare third baseman turning two, with anthony rendon doing the honors. i know i have a couple of these cards that are the result of teams shifting players all over the infield to defend against hitter tendencies. i would be at a loss sometimes to score games these days.