shows and shops and other forays into the hobby

one of the ways i participate in the hobby that i don't address much is that i sell on sportlots. i say that only to explain this news - wrigley wax is still collecting. i just filled a single card order for him the other day. not sure why the blog went/is quiet, but he appears to be still around, thankfully.

as for more frequent hobby interactions, i attended the mid october mall show. it was a big disappointment from a sports cards stand point, as the majority of the tables were pokemon focused. i did find a few bargains from bargain-ish boxes to keep, such as a 1994 topps ryan thompson gold parallel

and a 2015 panini cooperstown jackie robinson salute to the armed forces card

one of the few baseball card sellers had a few cody bellinger cards that i picked up - 2016 bowman chrome prospects

2017 bowman platinum

2018 bowman's best refractor

2021 topps 70 years of topps

2021 topps chrome black

and 2022 panini diamond kings framed gray

in which he is joined by walter alston.

i was able to add clayton kershaw's 2018 topps stadium club beam team card

a pair of 2023 topps allen & ginter mookie betts silver portrait parallels

and roki sasaki's 2025 topps stars of mlb card

to my dodger collection, too.

some other highlights include this 2021 topps stadium club robin yount red foil parallel

these 2021 panini prizm kyle cody parallels

for a couple of mini-collections, and these 2020 topps chrome frank robinson decades' best

and 2025 topps rip night ken griffey jr cards

just because. i haven't seen many (any?) of those chrome decades' best cards in the wild before.

a week or so later, i made an early morning, mid-week stop at a local card shop. early morning as in 8am. this shop opens at 7am on wednesdays which made it super convenient for me. talking to the owner, he said he opens that early on that day to meet some fanatics related hours requirement. it sounds like fanatics might prefer to have you order directly from them based on the barriers they seem to be constructing for these sorts of retail outlets.

anyway, this shop has nickel boxes that i hadn't dug through in quite a while. they had obviously opened some 2025 panini prizm, because there was a row of one monster box filled with it. i grabbed a bunch of these cards including cal ripken jr's

and then found just about a complete dodger team set

with a hye-seong kim insert, to boot. the only dodger missing from this nickel parade was pee wee reese.

here's another nickel dodger, a 2024 topps update james paxton yellow parallel

it's a laborious effort to dig through what is mostly base cards in these boxes, but it's worth it.

they also have team-sorted quarter/fifty cent boxes. that's where i found vladimir guerrero's 2025 panini prizm dingers insert

the dodgers in these boxes tend to be mostly bowman chrome prospect type things, but there are usually some decent cards within some of the other team slots. case in point:

that's aaron judge's 2025 topps heritage card. except it is also

bat flip variation! good times.

a few weeks later, i stopped at another store in the middle of minnesota while i was driving around for work. they had dollar-plus boxes at the counter and i dug for a little bit. i walked away with a 2024 topps black & white vladimir guerrero jr card

a 2024 topps chrome shohei ohtani all-etch insert

a 1994 upper deck all-time heroes manny mota 125th anniversary parallel

and a 2023 topps stadium club jackie robinson red foil parallel

and yes, i do consider that mota card to be a dodger card even though most of it belongs to the expos.

one other hobby participation effort to share - my first completed trade on tcdb! i shuffled off some 1971 topps cards to mattyb87 and he sent me some nice dodger cards:

2024 topps miguel rojas rainbow foil parallel

i am anticipating a few more miguel rojas cards in 2026.

2024 topps archives tyler glasnow and mookie betts own the game inserts

2025 topps heritage max muncy green parallel

2025 topps tribute freddie freeman

2025 topps will smith world tour domination

this one was nice to see - i hadn't seen or bothered to pick up any of these japan-themed cards as of yet.

a surprise throw in was this 2024 panini prizm don sutton pink ice prizm

which inspired me to add sutton's base prizm card to a sportlots order

and that's how you bring a blog post full circle!

reminder - add your comment to my recent post for a chance to win six non-base cards from the current major league team of your choice. results coming on saturday!

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.