a vintage chase of a different sort

with only two cards to go in my 1955 bowman set build, i don't have a lot of vintage to chase at the moment. i thought about reinstating my "sampler sets" of those topps flagship sets that i have not completed (1952-1956, 1958-1964, 1966-1969) and i just might do that although i think i still have most of the cards that comprised that part of my collection so there probably aren't a whole lot of cards to chase there either - mostly dodgers that migrated to my team collection.

what i have done is seek out some topps vintage stock cards for my collection. after seeing some from 2025 topps series 1, i was intrigued enough to pick up a couple of examples. here's clayton kershaw's card

just like last year, topps reimagined the current design for a simpler time. here's the back:

kind of christmasy.

i also picked up chris taylor's card

because it uses completely different colors than kershaw's, although the back is the same

and then i had the opportunity to add one of the checklist cards

that had another color scheme. here's its back:

which happens to be the only one of the three that is readily legible.

i also went back and found some vintage stock parallels from other topps releases for not a lot of money. here's a 2018 topps brandon mccarthy card

and a 2020 topps update terrance gore card

while i was happy for the short-timer gore to get a dodger card, this is probably one of my least favorite dodger cards in recent years because of the photoshopping and the design. but, i turned a blind eye to that fact when i found the vintage stock card for a very low price.

from 2022, here's tyler anderson's 2022 topps update card

in vintage stock form, and here's a dodger checklist card from 2022 topps flagship

that came from sluggo quite a while ago. that card is interesting because it appears that topps played with the image to make it look like an older photograph. vintage, if you will, in terms of irregular exposure. 

of course, 2024 was the first year that topps took vintage stock parallels in a whole different direction, and i recently added another example to my collection by way of jason heyward's card

i'm still annoyed by the addition of his number 23 to his jackie robinson day jersey.

another vintage pickup of mine has been a couple more dodger vintage embossed buyback cards from 2003 topps all-time fan favorites. you'll recall the 1979 steve garvey card i acquired, and now here is a 1975 topps roy campanella card (with yogi berra)

that includes the non-foil stamp. here's a photo that tries to show it in more detail

love seeing the "la" cap on campy!

similarly, here's a 1978 topps tommy john card with the stamp

with a photo for your benefit

the placement of these stamps seems to have been pretty willy nilly. for the record, the campy is listed as having 11 copies and the tommy john is listed at just 10. rare vintage adjacent pickups for my collection!

i really do doubt that i will chase any more vintage sets to completion. i would like to finish my 1953 topps dodger team set, but even needing only four cards (255 dixie howell, 258 jim gilliam, 263 john podres, 272 bill antonello) might be too much. luckily there are "other" vintage forms to keep an eye out for!

an update at the end of the season

well, congratulations to old friend dusty baker for adding a world series championship to his managerial resume. i am very happy for him!

with the astros' win, the 2022 baseball season comes to an end, but there are still a number of key baseball card releases (stadium club and allen & ginter to name a couple) coming up. one of the more recent issues was the annual update series that i have been looking forward to quite some time. the main reason for this is that the 2022 all-star game was held at dodger stadium and i was looking forward to some great looking cards as a result. i wasn't disappointed, although i will hold off on showing those cards for the time being.

when i looked at the checklist a week or so before my box arrived, i saw that clayton kershaw had a highlights card in the set. i was really hoping that the event that the card was focused on was his 7 perfect innings performance in minnesota back in april. that was not the case.

instead, the card celebrates his passing don sutton on the dodgers' all-time strikeout leaderboard. that's a big deal for dodger fans like myself who grew up with sutton as the ace of the staff. i do take some consolation in that this card uses a photo from kershaw's start against the twins, so i will for sure put a duplicate in my "cards featuring games i've attended in person" mini-collection.

similarly, these three twins cards

feature photos from the two games i went to that pitted the twins against the dodgers. i was hoping for a josh winder rookie debut card, since that occurred on april 12 against the dodgers, but topps used a photo from that game on his regular rookie card. chris archer was the twins' starter on april 12 and chirs paddack took the bump against kershaw on the 13th.

those three cards are what update is all about - veterans on new teams and a rookie who spent most of the season with a team. for the dodgers, it was nice to get a card of tyler anderson

even as i was surprised to not see trayce thompson included on the checklist. i guess his double dipper post will have to wait.  here are more of the dodger base cards

guys like dustin may and tony gonsolin have no business being in update. but, with the number of rookies topps puts in series 1 and 2, there isn't any room for the back end of the rotation guys.

combo cards are included, as always, and new dodger freddie freeman makes an appearance on one

as to the angels' mvp duo of shohei ohtani and mike trout

i feel like this has been an annual thing to see these two guys on a card in update since 2018

i showed freddie freeman's base dodger card up above, and i was quick to pick up two of his photo variation card

thanks to the dodger stadium background.  i also sought out his 1987 insert

because it wasn't one of the six in my box. instead, these were the ones that i found:

i am keeping a few base cards for myself, including this tyler mahle card

that shows him pitching in dodger stadium. in a perfect world, mahle would have been in this set as a twin since that's who he pitched for after the trade deadline. i guess the deadline for topps is right after the all-star game for this set.

i found a couple of double play cards, too

and, of course, the bigger name rookies

there were some interesting cards that i've paired up, like these two albert pujols cards:

that base card would have made a fine final tribute card in next year's flagship. i would be shocked if he were not a part of series 1, but stranger things have happened.

here are a couple of checklist/highlight cards in the same vein as the kershaw card up top

100 home runs for these guys.

i found two rainbow foil parallels

and two gold parallels

but no gold foil parallels.

i did get an orange foil parallel

and an independence day parallel 

looks like i got kerry's box.

here are the two black gold inserts i found

and here are the two diamond great die-cuts from my box

i only found one paragons of the postseason insert

there are no dodgers on the checklist for this insert set, although i see a dodger foot in the background behind arozarena.

here's the one generation now insert i found

roansy turns 23 tomorrow

i was promised one hit in the box, and this was it

i had been hoping for an all-star stitches jersey card if i were going to get just a relic card. obviously, that didn't work out.

here are the four cards that were in my silver pack

that black line must be from my scanner. i really hope it's not on the fritz.

i mentioned i was going to wait to show the all-star game cards. that's because i am going to complete the full insert set - or so i thought. there are a few cards, like this jose altuve card

that show all-stars but not at dodger stadium. altuve, yordan alvarez, nolan arenado, and bryce harper all withdrew from the rosters and so didn't show up in los angeles. i won't bother with those cards as a result, since i plan to put all of these in my dodger stadium binder. 

to show you what i mean i guess i will show one of those all-star cards.

it is glorious.

updating the topps dodger autograph project

last week i received a few ttm request returns, one of which i'll show here.  new cub brett anderson signed and returned the 2015 topps update card that i had sent him just over a year ago.  

this also allows me to fill a spot in my topps dodger autograph project for 2015 topps update.  as you might recall, i tried to secure at least one signed dodger card (ideally freely obtained through the mail) for each topps flagship set, starting with the 1951 red/blue backs, without repeating a player.  i don't officially consider update sets to be a part of the project, but i note them if i have them.  

speaking of update, i received a 2014 topps update scott van slyke card signed by mr. svs himself

sometime last year, so i've added that to the collection as well.

here's the updated tally of the project:

1951 topps - preacher roe (purchased)
1952 topps - rocky bridges
1953 topps - bobby morgan
1954 topps - billy herman (purchased)
1955 topps - don zimmer (purchased)
1956 topps - randy jackson
1957 topps - carl erskine
1958 topps - joe pignatano
1959 topps - fred kipp
1960 topps - chuck essegian
1961 topps - bob aspromonte
1962 topps - norm sherry
1963 topps - ed roebuck
1964 topps - ken mcmullen
1965 topps - dick tracewski
1966 topps - john kennedy
1967 topps - phil regan
1968 topps - jim campanis
1969 topps - jeff torborg
1970 topps - al mcbean
1971 topps - sandy vance
1972 topps - manny mota
1973 topps - wes parker
1974 topps - claude osteen
1974 topps traded - jim wynn
1975 topps - ron cey
1975 topps mini - joe ferguson
1976 topps - bill russell
1976 topps traded - dusty baker
1977 topps - steve garvey
1978 topps - dave lopes
1979 topps - charlie hough
1980 topps - jerry reuss
1981 topps - doug rau
1981 topps traded - ken landreaux
1982 topps - dave goltz
1982 topps traded - jose morales
1983 topps - ron roenicke
1983 topps traded - rafael landestoy
1984 topps - fernando valenzuela
1984 topps traded - mike vail
1985 topps - burt hooton
1985 topps traded - mariano duncan
1986 topps - enos cabell
1986 topps traded - franklin stubbs
1987 topps - steve sax
1987 topps traded - matt young
1988 topps - len matuszek
1988 topps traded - jay howell
1989 topps - mickey hatcher
1990 topps - kal daniels
1990 topps traded - juan samuel
1991 topps - tim belcher
1992 topps - roger mcdowell
1993 topps - dave hansen
1993 topps traded - tim wallach
1994 topps - jody reed
1995 topps - chris gwynn
1996 topps - todd hollandsworth
1997 topps - brett butler
1998 topps - greg gagne
1999 topps - jose vizcaino
2000 topps - jeff shaw
2001 topps - chan ho park
2002 topps - andy ashby
2002 topps traded - joel hanrahan
2003 topps - jim tracy
2003 topps traded - ron coomer
2004 topps - edwin jackson
2004 topps traded - milton bradley
2005 topps - chad billingsley
2005 topps update & highlights - jason phillips
2006 topps - bill mueller
2007 topps - james loney
2007 topps update & highlights - andy laroche
2008 topps - delwyn young
2008 topps update & highlights - casey blake
2009 topps - matt kemp
2009 topps update & highlights - brad ausmus
2010 topps - juan pierre
2010 topps update & highlights - ronnie belliard
2011 topps - hong-chih kuo
2011 topps update & highlights - matt guerrier
2012 topps - nathan eovaldi
2012 topps update & highlights - matt treanor
2013 topps - randy choate
2013 topps update - clayton kershaw
2014 topps - ricky nolasco
2014 topps update - scott van slyke
2015 topps - 
2015 topps update - brett anderson

i'm holding out hope for one of the few 2015 flagship cards i've sent out to be returned.  we'll see.

thanks brett and scott!