topps overcorrected a bit

after missing out on a team break for the inaugural release of topps chrome platinum anniversary in 2021, i joined a team break of the 2022 release, and was able to complete the dodger team set a couple times over while also finding a couple of parallels for my collection. in 2024, i joined a smaller break of the 2023 product, and came away with some decent cards to kickstart my team set building effort. there was no chrome platinum anniversary set released for 2024, allowing topps to actually align the card design with the platinum anniversary of the year that it was released. 

this has always been my biggest beef with topps heritage. starting in 2001 with the 1952 design seemed misaligned to me at the beginning, and soon thereafter led to an annual annoyance around 50th anniversary buybacks that aren't really 50th anniversary buybacks. anyway, the 2025 release of chrome platinum anniversary would feature the 1955 design in a satisfying act of synchronicity, and that pleased me. however, it wasn't until the middle of 2026 that the product was released.

regardless, i was looking forward to the product, but unfortunately my team break success was pre-ohtani, and with the 2025 release, the prices for dodger slots in breaks has been way more than i was willing to pay. instead, i've been building the base team set through a steady stream of sportlots orders.

the first card to arrive was tyler glasnow's

and it was sooned joined by nine others

chan ho park's baseball card resurgence was a big part of 2025, and it's nice to see kirk gibson get some dodger cardboard time.

here are a trio of rookies from 2025

with river ryan being the odd man out as he is no longer a dodger due to the tarik skubal trade.

roki sasaki

was part of a single card order from a seller who is losing money on shipping.

most of the cards came as part of larger orders where i found a couple of dodger cards from other sets in order to maximize my shipping cost investment. these two cards - hideo nomo and blake snell

were from one such order. as was hyeseong kim's card

topps has brought orel hershiser

back to us collectors, and i appreciate that. i do wish he had more cards like this and fewer autograph only releases though. it seems he has been given the steve garvey treatment in that regard.

here's a trio of dodger legends that arrived together - jackie robinson, sandy koufax, and clayton kershaw

and here's a couple more - duke snider and mookie betts

jackie, sandy, and the duke were all in the original 1955 set, so it's nice to see them again 70 (71) years later.

i did not have adrian gonzalez

dodger cards on my 2025 or 2026 bingo card but i will accept it.

the last card i needed was ohtani's

and it was easily the most expensive with an all-in cost of just under nine bucks.

the card that i was most excited about was dusty baker's

now that he has retired from managing, i hope we see more cards of him in dodger blue. i even scanned the back

baker is my go-to on baseball reference's immaculate grid for dodger silver slugger, and i've used him for gold glover as well when garvey was already used in a different category.

that baker card, as well as this betts/robinson 1955 double header insert

would both be candidates for my favorite dodger card of the year except for the facts that this is a 2025 release (officially) and that there was a 2026 topps card of clayton kershaw to wrap up his hall of fame career.

i used ebay to add that insert above as well as the full six card 1955 world series dodger team set

the cards above, and the backs below, are shown in numerical order even though that means they are not in chronological order. you will see what i mean, as roy campanella's card starts with game 3 

no johnny podres card for game 7 which is a surprise, but pee wee reese is an acceptable substitute.

back to game 1 with jackie

duke's exploits in game 4 lead into gil hodges' in game 7

and to round out the team set, topps fit in another koufax card even though he wasn't part of the world series. again, it's something that i am a-ok with.

there are a multitude of parallels for these cards, as well as the autograph subsets. i've held myself to only picking up a couple of those. steve garvey is always a target, and so i added his base auto

with a very basic back

as well as his aqua refractor 

numbered to 150.

i've noted that a number of resellers don't understand the concept of a facsimile autograph that is part of the 1955 card design. there are so many listings for "auto" cards that are just base cards or base parallels. 

to date, the only base parallel that i have purchased is this platinum toile gold parallel of hideo nomo

it's numbered to 50 and is a nice example of the excess that has defined parallels of chrome platinum anniversary to date.

last minute update! earlier today i received these three blue prism refractor parallels

after purchasing them as a lot for about a buck apiece.

it's probably too much to ask for 2026 topps chrome platinum anniversary featuring the fantastic 1956 topps design to actually be released in 2026. hopefully topps gets things on track at some point.

the finest cards not from the national

i saw fuji post a blog bat around yesterday about not being at the national. of course, chris started the bat around asking folks to post show worthy cards in lieu of attending the convention in chicago. well, i am not going to go that route, but i will share some of the recent additions to my collection that i might have found at the national if there were ever a return of bargain boxes.

these cards from 2026 topps finest are the newest to my collection, arriving in yesterday's mail.

yoshinobu yamamoto topps team finest insert

kirk gibson finest timelines insert

love this card. seeing another vin scully call on a card - especially one that features this moment - is fantastic. the back also shares jack buck's call

which i am fond of as well. i also added the card in refractor fashion

as denoted on the back

as you might suspect, i actually purchased two of each of these so that i could put one set in my dodger collection and one in my collection of cards featuring games that i have seen in person.

also in the mail with those cards yesterday was this 2025 topps update insert

commemorating a first pitch at dodger stadium by this gentleman name miyavi.

another card i received last week was this 2021 topps archives snapshots mookie betts 

it completes the (small) dodger team set for me.

the remainder of these cards are ones that have been in my scanned folder for a while, and it's time to show them on the blog. nothing big here, but the types of cards that i've found in dig boxes at past shows.

2004 fleer greats of the game blue parallels of davey lopes

and johnny podres

2013 topps triple threads amethyst matt kemp

and amber duke snider

2014 topps opening day blue foil parallels of carl crawford and hanley ramirez

2020 topps museum collection base and copper parallels of cody bellinger and sandy koufax

2023 topps update royal blue alex vesia

2024 topps cosmic chrome mike piazza galactic greatness insert

2025 topps holofoil parallels of joe kelly 

and justin wrobleski

that scanned differently for some reason

2023 topps clayton kershaw flagship insert

are those cards considered inserts? regardless, it's a bit odd to not be finding many new kershaw cards now that he is retired. chasing his stuff was a big part of the hobby for me the last 18 years so this year has been a bit of an adjustment. thankfully, there are still a ton of his older cards that i can chase. 

2024 topps allen & ginter minis of kershaw

and freddie freeman, 

although freeman's is an a&g back

2025 topps allen & ginter minis of freeman

and blake snell

and this time, snell's is the a&g back

i did find some bargain boxes at the national last year, but the primary reason i made the trip was to do the meet & greet with steve garvey and get a photo and autograph from the first baseman for the team of my youth. it was a great success as far as i am concerned. 

no in person autographs for me to show, but i'll share this 2025 topps museum collection sticker auto/triple relic card of the garv

that is my lone example from the legion of auto-relic cards that he had in the set.

there is a chance that i make it to the national next year in detroit, but regardless, i am sure i will have some cards to show off should this bat around be around again next year.

a second look at series 2

my mega box of 2026 topps series 2 showed up a few weeks ago, but i held off on this post until i finished my dodger team set. that happened on monday, so here we are. this won't be all dodgers, though, as there were some cards featuring other teams that i enjoyed.

double play turns on cardboard seem to be less frequent these days, but here is a very nice jp crawford card

i don't seek out cards that feature cards, but i think it makes sense for topps to go this route given the state of the hobby

not sure why "stars align" was the title of this pack ripping themed card, but i don't work for topps. here's the back

"sweet hit" is mentioned but not "sick pull".

gerrit cole's card

features a photo of him pitching during game 5 of the 2024 world series, assumedly just before the wheels came off and the dodgers erased the 5-0 deficit in the 5th inning.

harrison bader's card

has me wondering what the rush was to get him into series 2 as a giant rather than waiting for update. this is an obvious photoshop that we didn't really need. i suppose that perhaps topps recognized that bader split 2025 between two teams and then signed with the giants for 2026. it's possible that by the time this year's update rolls around, he might not be on the giants anymore. for the record, this photo is bader scoring a winning run on a walk-off sac fly for the phillies. 

jake mangum's card

has me thinking that the ball is headed into the third base dugout.

denzel clarke

has some nice cards to date, and the only thing i don't like about this is the cramming of "athletics" into a space meant for three letters. why create a design element that doesn't work for all of the teams? it's ponderous.

the guardians' team card

is cropped nicely

the next two cards are dodgers in disguise. here's jack little

and justin dean

both of these cards have these world champions airbrushed into their new uniforms. here are the backs

that show their limited dodger experience. the little card is in my dodger stadium collection, as is josh hader's

which features a very similar looking shot.

i've added luis matos' card

to the "header" part of my retired numbers collection, as it shows orlando cepeda's number on display in pac bell/at&t park

i found kazuma okamoto's rookie card

with some impressive npb stats on the back

plus his teammate trey yesavage's rookie card

as for parallels, i found alec bohm

and gavin lux

in rainbow foil form, and cedric mullins

on an aqua rainbow foil parallel of a parallel.

here's a javier sanoja holofoil parallel

the inserts were a bit more interesting, with 1991 cards of carter jensen and nick kurtz

plus a 1991 all-star card of joe mauer

1991 topps was a favorite set of mine during the junk wax era, and the all-star card design is still my favorite of the separate all-star subsets that began in 1982.

here are a couple of the silver crackle foil 1991 parallels

juan soto, whatever, but i like finding new dale murphy cards.

the most plentiful inserts are the "titans of the game" cards that don't have that moniker on the front in series 2. i found tarik skubal

three rookies

plus one more

i read somewhere that topps intentionally left the "titans of the game" off of the fronts because the players' heads often obscured the "a" so the card looked like "tit ns of the game". not sure if that is true.

the other plentiful insert set is "stars of mlb". here are the ones that were in my mega box

back to inserts, i was fortunate to find a couple of dodger cards, including a silver crackle 1991 card of blake snell

plus freddie freeman's 1991 all-star card

base cards were in line with the expected distribution, and i was able to cross freeman

justin wrobleski, miguel rojas, hyeseong kim

tyler glasnow

and the shohei ohtani, yoshinobu yamamoto, and roki sasaki combo cards

off of my list. typically, topps reserves images showing the commissioner's trophy to golden mirror parallel status, so i was happy to see it on that "risen sons" card.

if you don't want to see any more dodger cards, go ahead and leave now.

to complete my team set, i went to sportlots and ordered the cards of jack dreyer, edwin diaz, emmet sheehan

kyle tucker, will smith

andy pages

and shoehei ohtani

i actually like that ohtani gets cards in series 1 and 2 since that means we get full stats on the back. hitting stats in series 1 and pitching stats in series 2

i did my best to fill out these orders with parallels and inserts that were reasonably priced. here's a sandglitter wrobleski

stars of mlb yamamoto and freeman

titans of the game freeman

and alex freeland

glove work mookie betts

and crooked numbers sandy koufax

382 strikeouts blows my mind, and then to think that nolan ryan reached 383 is beyond ridiculous.

this one is not from series 2, but it came with one of the orders so i'll show it here - clayton kershaw's perennial all-stars

i was hoping to find more cheap parallels and inserts at the june card show, but came away with only these three - rainbow foil kim

and a holiday and gold tucker

finally, i picked up a few cards on ebay, including clayton kershaw's crooked numbers insert

the base version of snell's 1991 card

this trio of 1991 all-star cards

plus glove work inserts of freeman and jackie robinson

those all came together in a lot.

as for singles, i've only bought one of the steve garvey 1991 auto cards

although parallels abound

this one was pretty inexpensive, perhaps due to the off-centered signature but i don't mind.

i am more pleased to have been able to add one of the world series champion autos again this year. this time, i bought a tommy edman orange parallel auto numbered to 25

that had a low buy it now price. here's the back

i would like to add a couple more of these, but prices are a bit out of line as you might expect.

i will probably purchase some update directly from topps and then wait for 2027 heritage. stay tuned!