red and some other select cards

i noticed a lot of red in my scanned folder so figured i would create a corresponding post.

sometime last year, i completed my red parallel dodger team set of 2009 topps unique

thanks to chad billingsley, andre ethier, manny ramirez, and jim thome. those four fellows join matt kemp, clayton kershaw, and russell martin in my team binder. as an aside, this may be the most upper decky set topps has ever produced. i don't know why, but i always want to call it upper deck unique.

here's a 2013 topps mark ellis parallel

that was exclusive to target

2020 topps opening day justin turner red foil

i don't think that the red foil cards were exclusive to a retailer, but they might have been.

2025 topps heritage gavin stone

and the alcs/nlcs card

i think these are target exclusives?

panini does red, too. here's a 2022 panini mosaic mookie betts red mosaic parallel

and a 2022 panini donruss red parallel of kenley jansen

that one is numbered to 2022, and this 2023 panini donruss brooks lee red holo parallel

is numbered to 2023. i guess the red parallel (one of them, anyway) is/are panini's topps gold equivalent.

now here's a 2023 panini prizm jim gilliam ruby wave parallel

it's sort of red.

and this 2022 panini prizm walker buehler parallel

is one-third red, as it's a red white & blue parallel. more like red white & buehler!

finally, here's a red prizm parallel of steve garvey's 2024 panini select card.

it's numbered to 149 on the back

it was a nice surprise to see garvey included in that release, and i joined a couple of player breaks back when the cards first came out.  i wound up with mostly base

but did also get a holo prizm

i wound up buying some parallels on the secondary marker, like this orange flash prizm

this red white & blue prizm

and this tricolor prizm

this light blue prizm

numbered to 199 

arrived via one of my break entries.

back to the secondary market for this black and blue prizm

numbered to 49

and it's the bookend!

one of the breaks i joined really paid off when the seller pulled this tie dye prizm

that is numbered to just 25

very nice.

there are (of course) many more parallels out there, and i had one (white prizm) go missing in the mail. i don't have any others queued up for purchase, but never say never.

spirit of 76

it's independence day today, and if all went well i was at the ballpark watching the twins and tigers. i last went to a fourth of july game in 2013, so it had been awhile since i celebrated our nation's birthday with our nation's pastime.

i will be on the lookout for some topps now cards tomorrow, but of course there are cards to share today, including this 2020 topps hyun-jin ryo independence day parallel

that i found in a bargain bin some time ago.

the design topps used in 2020 was pretty elaborate compared to what they were using when 2022 topps update came along. i found this ryan pepiot independence day parallel

in a pack or team break, and the design really isn't much different from the money grab factory set gold star parallels that topps put out the same year.

the first two cards are numbered to 76, of course, to go along with their designs.

panini doesn't number their independence day parallels, and they are pretty consistent with white stars on blue backgrounds, or blue stars on white backgrounds. i found these next cards in various bargain bins sometime within the last year.

2019 panini donruss manny machado

2021 panini donruss dale murphy

2022 panini donruss manny machado

2023 panini donruss ichiro

the first of those four i chose because it's a dodger card. the other three because i have little will power when it comes to bargain boxes and parallels.

this last card came from the show i went to in houston and set me back a buck

that's an independence day commemorative patch card from 2017 topps, and topps matched the photo to an actual 4th of july game.

whether you are at the ballpark or doing something else today, happy 4th of july!

what can i get for 58 cents?

back in the late 80's, a friend of mine played boogie down productions' single "illegal business" in his car while we were driving around. that song sampled a line from a "fat albert" episode in which the titular character asks "what can we get for 63 cents?" now, i watched a fair amount of "fat albert" on saturday mornings and i assume my friend did, too, but he found the sample incredibly amusing. after that, pretty much whenever we were in a retail setting, you could bet that he was going to ask, "what can we get for 63 cents?" it was so prevalent that i also began to think about it, and i still do from time to time.

at the semi-annual card show in april, i found a seller who had at least a dozen monster boxes with a price list posted above them. the prices were a sliding scale - the more you buy the cheaper the price per card. pretty standard stuff. after a while, i knew i was going to be taking home a large number of cards and decided to cap myself at 200. the price for 200 cards was $120, which i recognized as 60 cents per card. so, guess what line popped into my head? well, it turned out that i picked out 205 cards but he kept the price at $120, and so here is (some of) what i got for 58.5 cents.

i'll kick things off with a 2021 topps chrome mookie betts image variation refractor short print

always pleased to add a card of mookie celebrating during the 2020 world series! in fact. there's another one among the parallels below

freddie freeman also showed up in parallel fashion

but most of the cards i chose were not dodgers.

there was some "fake" vintage from 2021 topps heritage by way of mini die-cuts

some real vintage by way of 1970 and 1971 fleer laughlin world series cards

and some "not quite" vintage from the early 1980's

the 1985 donruss dave winfield/don mattingly card was a hot commodity in my neighborhood back then. this is the first time i've seen the card at a show in probably at least 30 years.

the junk wax era was represented, too, with a 1987 donruss greg maddux rookie

there were parallels numbered on the fronts

and parallels numbered on the backs

and i had a lot of fun just digging through the variety. i found a vein of thicker cards that included some dodgers as well as a 2019 topps museum collection manny machado copper parallel

for my double play collection.

same goes for this 2022 panini donruss brandon crawford dominators card

and i think i will keep this 2021 topps allen & ginter chrome world's largest - pacific ocean mini card

because it shows the northern california coastline - i believe somewhere around santa rosa. it's not near where i grew up, nor is it big sur where i've spent a lot of time, but it's still the ragged edge of the western world.

i'm not going to show the other 163 cards i took, but i will show seven more that i found interesting for one reason or another.

1999 topps stadium club kerry wood video replay

taking the lenticular card to the next level

2002 fleer box score albert pujols

second year pujols cards are still fun to find

2011 topps heritage minors garin cecchini red tint

topps went overboard with the tinting while trying to create a homage to an original element of the 1962 set. not sure why they didn't stick with green.

1998 stadium sports publishing mickey mantle hologram promo

oddball mickey!

2022 panini prizm bryce harper stained glass

it doesn't scan the best, but it lights up in the sun.

2009 topps kazuo matsui missing foil

i had never seen one of these in person before

2021 topps now brennan davis

a ken griffey jr cameo?! a no-brainer for 58 cents!