golden gate, golden state

following up saturday's state-themed post with another one today. from 2024 topps allen & ginter, i have added this california insert to my collection

unlike the minnesota card, this one actually features a bridge iconic to the state. it's been a few years since i've driven (and even more since i've walked) across the golden gate bridge, but i'll get back eventually. i was in the bay area last month but drove across the bay bridge on the east side of town rather than come around the north side of the bay from where i was.

i have no other cards to show from my trip to the golden state. i perused a target card aisle but was not impressed by the selection and also stopped by a card shop on the central coast, but it no longer had dig boxes - just overpriced singles and packs/boxes. still, any trip back to california is a good one in my book and this was indeed a great one. 

allen & ginter meets minnie & paul

the dodgers visited minnesota in june for a three game series. i only made it to one game (the second of the series) which means i believe i missed a dodger game in minnesota for the first time in my lifetime. the first game featured three solo home runs (shohei ohtani and freddie freeman for the dodgers and byron buxton for the twins) and the third game saw mookie betts hit career home run number 300 in support of ohtani on the mound. as for the game i did see, it was a bit sloppy with a 30 minute delay at the start due to heavy rains earlier in the evening. the twins didn't play too well defensively, and the game devolved into a bit of a runaway for the dodgers.

there was only one topps now card created for the games, and it was all about mookie's milestone home run. i likely won't seek it out since it was from a game i did not attend, but it's a dodger card so you never know. thankfully, i have some other cards to show that are tangentially related to this topic.

i am a fan of the insert sets in topps' allen & ginter('s) releases. i may not collect them all, but there are some interesting categories and subjects. i will most definitely find some that appeal to me or have some sort of meaning - case in point, the "beachin' it" inserts from last year's issue.

here are some that have also made it into my collection...

from 2023 topps a&g's "only in..." insert set

that would be the minnie and paul sign at target field. more about it on the back:

the sign and logo are even more significant these days, with the twins' triple-a team playing in st. paul.

in 2024, topps included a 50 states insert set. here's how the land of 10,000 lakes was represented

the back is interesting to me

and i am left wondering why the inset image is not of something relative to the text, such as the paul bunyan statue in bemidji. the image shown is of the lowry bridge over the mississippi which is not the most iconic bridge in the city of minneapolis, let alone the state. curious about how that image was selected.

in 2025, topps gave us the state bird insert set. here's minnesota's

with explanatory text on the back:

i have spent many a morning hearing the call of a loon from one of minnesota's lakes.

also in 2025, ginter had an insert set focused on lighthouses. the split rock lighthouse was included

here's the back

i've been up to split rock a couple of times. it's up on the "north shore" which is the westerly side of lake superior. it's a nice drive between duluth and grand marais (and all the way up to canada), and this lighthouse gives some nice views of the lake. plus, castle danger's brewery is close by.

i've lived in minnesota for nearly 30 years, and i appreciate seeing it and its features included in these sets. i'm looking forward to 2026 allen & ginter and seeing what insert topics are included.

back to the dodgers having been in town, i'll go ahead and show this 2024 topps chrome insert of betts

since i did spend part of my summertime in the park watching him and his teammates play. i am still a dodger collector at heart, you know. or should i say, you betcha?!

fifty cent frenzy at the card show

after missing the last few cards shows of 2024, i made it to the monthly twin cities club show in january. i usually get there a few minutes early and am in the lobby when they open the doors. this time, i got there about five minutes after the doors opened. that made a difference.

one of the regular sellers who has some pretty good bargain boxes was there for the first time in a while, at least the first time he and i were at a show at the same time. by the time i walked to his table, there were already half a dozen guys digging through his fifty cent boxes. one of the guys had abandoned his own tables to dig, and didn't seem to mind missing out on sales while he tore through a box.

i was able to get in at a corner of the table and made sure to ask who was where in the box closest to me and i started going through. i wound up only being able to get to about half of the boxes but still came away with a lot of cards for my collection and the collections of others. the only bad thing about my approach was that once i had an unwieldy stack going, i asked the seller to stack them behind the table and told him to go ahead and start counting. this lack of forethought kept me from double checking some of the cards i had pulled, and so i wound up with a short stack of dodger cards that i really didn't need.

anyway, here's a taste of what i found from these boxes:

i had never seen the 1992 ud minors todd hollandsworth card before - it's an insert - but i was pretty sure i had the jeff shaw own the game card from 2002 and the 2017 topps chrome bellinger rookie, but i set them aside anyway. i was positive that i had the 2022 topps uk clayton kershaw insert but figured someone out there might want it. the others were all cards i needed. 

i was able to feed my vladimir guerrero collection with a couple of cards, including a 1999 upper deck retro and 2004 fleer ultra insert

the retro card is numbered to 1000.

i found a new double play card, too.

that's a 2020 topps robinson cano 1985 35th anniversary insert, blue parallel.

as you can likely infer from those scans, there were inserts, parallels, oddballs, and some base in the boxes. tons of 35th anniversary cards 

and silver pack cards 

and parallels for sure.

his boxes are usually good for at least one variation card, and this was no exception

that's a photo variation from 2016 topps update jameson taillon card.

i will bite every time i see an all aces insert - this one is from 2023 topps update

and features zack greinke, who i have a soft spot for. that is a nice looking insert set, but i am still not officially chasing it.

there were some old school inserts that i grabbed, too, like this barry bonds insert from 1996 topps chrome

a tony gwynn insert

from 1999 fleer tradition and a textured greg maddux insert

from 2000 fleer ultra

the biggest surprise i had when i was going through the cards - this was after i had purchased the stack - was this one from 2024 topps series 1

that's an umbrella parallel, or maybe a rain umbrella parallel, as there were different umbrella parallels in series 2. anyway, the card is numbered to only 10

it's a lame parallel, but still.

the next stop i made was at the seller who has dime boxes under his table. this time, there was a quarter box as well as a dime box, but there were two other people trying to get at them. i was able to join in once they were clear of the quarter box, and then i made my way to the dimes. here are most of the quarter box cards i pulled:

the only dodgers i took from that box were these jackie robinson and mookie betts cards

from 2024 topps allen & ginter.

here's some of the 190 cards i took from his dime box:

this was the first time i saw these 2024 ginter oregon zoo inserts in person. i was enthralled.

2022 topps 206 pairing of gary sheffield and gil hodges

i might have passed on these, but i just picked up a few mini ultra pro sheets so i knew these guys would have a good home in my 2022 dodger binder.

2023 topps chrome update will smith all-star game insert

after making the 2022 cards like this a priority, i slacked off last year.

2024 topps update blake treinen royal blue parallel

i will take any dodger parallel for a dime.

2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary pee wee reese

this is a base card, but it's one of the few i still need(ed) for the team set. not sure if and when the 2024 version of this set will be released.

here's a smattering of some other dime box cards

that 1995 bowman calvin "pokey" reese does look like it was signed by pokey himself, and i will help myself to a 1979 topps bump wills error card for a dime all day long thank you very much.

here's another vladdy i was able to add - 2023 topps black & white

plus a dodger stadium card from 2023 topps stadium club

this is giancarlo stanton hitting a home run in the 2022 all-star game. i get a kick out of this big moment happening while the marlins guy is looking at his phone.

two more dime box cards to show and then i will move on. this is a 2012 topps chrome orange refractor troy tulowitzki parallel

and a 2017 topps chrome dee gordon prism refractor parallel

that fit into my double play collection. bonus for ichiro running around in the background of gordon's card.

next up i stopped at a table that was packed with cards separated out by sport and many by player. i mean, when's the last time you saw raul mondesi cards tabbed out specifically? i didn't spend a lot of time but did grab four cards from this seller for a grand total of $11.50. two were keepers for me - a 2002 fleer authentix paul loduca ripped jersey insert/parallel

and a 2001 topps archives ron cey autograph

the cards were heavily discounted, so the loduca was $0.75 and the cey was five bucks. the other two cards i bought were from the same two sets just of different players/teams and i hope to hand them off to my intended recipient in person later this year.

i wasn't 100% sure whether or not i had the cey card already, but it turned out i did not. i was aware of the large number of dodger autographs that were available in this set back in 2001 when i was chasing after the base set (the box i bought included a bob feller autograph that i now have in my hall of famer collection), but i guess i didn't seek any out on ebay which was really the only source available to me back then. i may prioritize these autos now.

one of my goals for the show was to find some 2024 topps archives singles and parallels, and i did just that when i stopped at a regular seller's table. he always has newer releases broken out for set collectors and he had archives. he listed them for sale as a quarter for loose and fifty cents for sleeved cards. i found two of each and went to give him $1.50. at that point the guy said that archives hadn't been priced yet. i showed him his sign and he said that he shouldn't have put the cards out. now, i could probably find the four cards i chose on ebay/sportlots for not much more than $1.50 but he was determined to get more from me than he had listed the cards for so i told him to pound sand. this is the same guy i ran into once a few years ago at a local target where he was pack searching. i've bought singles from him before but will probably shy away from now on.

my last stop was at one of the vintage bargain box sellers, and i wound up achieving one of my other goals for the show by adding to my 1955 bowman set build. those cards will show up in later posts as i continue to show off my progress on the set.

in all, it was a decent show and i spent almost 200 bucks which might be the most i've ever spent at one of these shows. plus, i was able to talk with brian from highly subjective, completely arbitrary at a couple of the tables, and we exchanged some cards although we didn't snap a photo of our wallet cards. i will share the fantastic stuff he handed over to me in another post.

ps - i didn't pick this card up at the show, but i've had it in my scanned folder for a long while now.

that's jeff torborg's 1978 topps card, and i made the decision a few months back to go ahead and put it in my dodgers binder since he is shown as a dodger in his playing days photo. torborg passed away a couple of weeks ago, and as one of the first former dodgers i was ever aware of, i felt an impact from the news and wanted to be sure to acknowledge his passing here.

i did but also did not give two rips about ginter

long gone are the days of allen & ginter dominating the blogosphere with "gintacuffs" and other widespread sharing of the latest release from topps. here we are now in late january, and i've only posted one card from the 2024 ginter set. since that post, i actually purchased another pack that included steve garvey's card which is always nice. however, i had already picked up a couple of singles of that card.

the big card that i bought from 2024 topps allen & ginter is this one:

that's one side of a double rip card. here's the other side:

freddie freeman and steve garvey have been paired up a couple of times now by topps which makes some sense. seeing them both on a double rip card, however, ups the ante. 

i've left the card alone for now. i watched a couple of double rip rips on youtube and the return was underwhelming. while that does increase the odds (very very slightly) that there is something better inside my card, i haven't been tempted to risk it. what would you do?

i also targeted a framed mini auto of garvey

and his boxtopper autograph

which is numbered to 25 and smaller than i expected. it's shorter and wider than a standard sized card.

less interesting but more plentiful is his aforementioned base card, which is shown here with with three parallels that i bought

those parallels are the hot box silver portrait, the silver foil filigree, and the gold foil filigree. i have so far avoided pursuing any of the minis out there aside from the black border, 

but i did grab his allen & ginter x card

no minis from that set yet, though.

this is the first time that garvey has been featured in ginter as a regular card after being among the short prints the last couple of years. before that, he only had a short print relic card in one ginter release. it would be nice to see him infiltrate other sets like stadium club as a base card subject.

he did make an appearance in 2024 topps 206

and i've limited myself to just adding his base card plus the autograph

as for ginter, the only other dodger i've added from 2024 ginter is clayton kershaw

but i am sure there will be others joining my collection at some point.

the boys are boppin'

great news last night when we learned that dick allen and dave parker are headed to the national baseball hall of fame. here's the newest parker card i've come across

it was in the one pack of 2024 allen & ginter that i've opened, and it's an a&g back to boot.

while i am disappointed that others on the ballot did not get the requisite 12 votes (tommy john got seven, and the rest, including steve garvey and luis tiant, received fewer than five based on initial reports), i am happy for parker and for allen's family and for the fans of 70's baseball like me.

the eras committees are all about the gray area of hall of fame candidacy and i am hopeful that at some point the membership of the committee aligns with those of us who grew up watching some of these players and thinking that they are worthy of enshrinement.

both allen and parker are already in my hall of famer collection, but now i've moved them from the "maybe someday" group to the official hall of fame group. i'm excited to see who joins them at cooperstown in july!