mall rats and giveaway winners

yesterday morning i took some time to check out the near-to-me mall show that sets up a few times a year. they always include the weekend before christmas in their schedule and i wanted to only show up at the very start of the show for a couple of reasons. one, there was a club show on saturday which is more predictable in terms of product, and two, i want to avoid malls this time of year during later hours and actual weekends. however, i wasn't able to get there until the early afternoon.

to my surprise, the mall wasn't that busy and there were a lot more tables set up than the last mall show i attended in october. unfortunately, there were very few diggable boxes of any interest to me. hence, the "rats" in the title post.

i made a couple of laps and did manage to find some cards to bring home, and in hindsight i am not too disappointed! while i purchased cards from four sellers, i am only going to share cards from one of them.

this 2023 topps chrome james outman card

is a "radiating rookies" insert

and i was told it was a case hit. same for this 2025 topps chrome mookie betts lightning leaders card

i pulled these from a monster box of toploaded cards with no pricing. the guy behind the table said that he would price cards from the box at one or two bucks, typically. i built a short stack that included this 2025 topps heritage alcs/nlcs yellow parallel

and a couple of parallels from 2024 topps stadium club - sepia jackie robinson and gold foil roy campanella

the campanella isn't numbered, but the gold foils look like they should be. this 2023 topps gilded collection rookies cast in gold card of james outman

is numbered - /199.

as for non-dodgers, i did grab some of those, too. here's a gold parallel from 2025 topps update of the brent rooker/lawrence butler combo card

it's a nice looking card, and the back

namechecks big mac and golden gopher great terry steinbach, along with jimmie foxx and the immortal bob johnson.

here's a 2025 topps vintage stock parallel of marco gonzales

with the back

all dressed up for christmas.

i had no reason to choose this 2025 topps josh rojas card

which is a memorial day camo parallel, numbered to 25

but it didn't rocket up the cost of the rest of the cards, so i left it in my purchase.

last card i will show is this 2025 topps lucas erceg team color border parallel

and speaking of teams and parallels...

earlier on friday, i randomized the list of names/teams from my giveaway post earlier in the week. i was a bit surprised to see so many entries and decided to bump things up to four winners as a result. here are the standard three randomizations:

with the winners being tony, tom, mark, and crh614. be sure to email me your addresses at gcrl at comcast dot net  (even you, tom, just so i can be sure i have the current one). 

keep in mind that these are "above and beyond my normal number of mailings" mailings, meaning that there will be other mailings sent, too. if anyone else in the list above wants to send me their address, i'll pull a couple of cards for them as well.  

all told, the stack of cards i pulled from the seller were priced at $30 which was just above $2/card and i thought a pretty good deal given the scarcity of some of the cards i pulled. he didn't have any change, so i added a couple of scrub autos from his box to get to $40. one of the autos i grabbed was this 2025 topps edgardo henriquez card

the other one is going out to one of the randomized winners.

something to look forward to

i was all set for this post to be a nod to blue jays fans and collectors with what they could expect to see in 2026 and beyond from topps until all of the strange and "you might never see that again" plays from games 6 and 7 of the 2025 world series transpired. so, now this post is about cards that i and other dodger fans and collectors can look forward to.

2025 topps chrome world series champions refractor

there are 16 cards in this insert set, but this is the one i wanted most. limited to 50 and, as a result, wildly priced on the secondary market, i had to act fast to buy this one that was undervalued by the seller. here's the back:

these cards were "new" this year and limiting them to 50 copies sucks. i would have loved to be able to complete a set, but there is just no way.

it is possible that topps returns postseason cards to the flaghip set in 2026. i think the last time they did that was 2021 - here's one of the world series highlights cards from that set (it's a yellow parallel)

topps has stayed true to the heritage sets, so there will be singular cards for the world series and the league championship series in the 1977 design next year, most likely.

blue jay fans can look forward to cards like these title clash inserts from 2024 topps dynamic duals

that feature al and nl champs. a shohei ohtani and vladimir guerrero card would be pretty nice.

of course, world series champions are an easy go-to for topps when coming up with inserts, like they did back in 2009 with their flagship and update sets. this one features duke snider

who won a pair of rings with the dodgers.

2014 topps update included another ring focused insert set

this commemorative ring card isn't anything that topps seems to be doing these days, but maybe they bring these back? 

the rings are certainly gaudier these days and would provide some interesting fodder.

traditionally, there have been world series champion relics in flagship each year, although i don't think they were included in 2025 topps. the first year i remember seeing these was back in 2004 and i think they were in update. i pulled a dave roberts relic card which was pretty cool. today, they are less interesting but sort of hard to come by. i added this 2021 topps walker buehler example

earlier this year. it's numbered to 99 which i think is the highest print run of these things. here's the back:

nowhere near as interesting as the johnny podres fake ring card.

this year, perhaps in lieu of relic cards, topps introduced world series champion autographs. i was sure to pick up buehler's

because of his series ending role. here's the back:

the only other two i have are justin wrobleski and tony gonsolin

the buehler and gonsolin are numbered, but the wrobleski is not. i couldn't find any info on non-numbered cards for some reason. the backs are the same as buehler's

these are sticker autos but still pretty pricey. the wrobleski and gonsolin cards were outliers that the sellers put buy it now values between $20 and $30.

and then there are the cards in the future where a world series title is referenced. i picked up this 2025 leaf metal inscription autograph of 1981 world series champion steve garvey

in part because the inscription is "81 ws champs", but also because it's numbered 6/10

garvey also showed up in 2023 topps update with another world series themed commemorative insert set

this is the gold parallel that i tracked down a few months ago. garvey is the guy who gets the most mileage out of that 1981 title, although it would be nice to see some others like ron cey, steve yeager, pedro guerrero, or fernando valenzuela on cards like these.

at least it's nice to see the commissioner's trophy on a card that is sort of easy to find. topps has taken to reserving it in 2025 for semi-rare parallels like a bunch of dodger golden mirror cards. case in point, here's edgardo henriquez's golden mirror parallel

i had to wait for quite a while for one of these - featuring any player - showed up with a decent enough price. here's the back:

henriquez pitched in 3 games for the dodgers in the 2024 regular season, and then 3 more in the postseason, although none of those were in the world series. this year, he pitched in a couple of world series games. i might target his 2026 golden mirror card to keep the set going.

i am hoping that 2026 brings more cards like these, but that they are easier to find. give me a stadium club base card showing clayton kershaw with the trophy like we had in 2021 rather than the golden mirror card we got this year, for example. to the champs go the spoils and i can't wait to add more world series themed cards to my dodger collection in the future!

here's a heaping helping of heritage

after opening my hobby box of heritage, i went out and bought a fair amount more. i was interested in another box, but i wound up buying two opened boxes for the price of one unopened box. i am not sure why the seller opened two boxes and then sold the contents at half off. i suppose it is possible that they pulled a big card and i got the rest, but the haul matched what i found in my initial box, so i am pleased. i also bought a hanger box or maybe it was a mega box, plus about a dozen cards from an ebay seller. 

at any rate, here are a bunch more cards from 2025 topps heritage.

i think that chuck yeager's notable americans card

is a good one to start with. test pilot is a badass job, and he's related to the catcher from the team of my youth.

i appreciated finding jon jay's notable americans card

because i started reading "the federalist papers" last month. jay, along with alexander hamilton and james madison, published the collection of leaflets under the name "publius". i will say that all americans would benefit from reading this book.

heritage has taken the parallels of inserts to a new extreme. case in point is this foil parallel of mookie betts' through the years insert

and i have a couple more examples for later on.

the two guaranteed hits from the opened boxes were this luisangel acuna clubhouse collection relic

and a gold jonathan india clubhouse collection relic

neither are worth anything, really, but interesting to see.

meanwhile, rod from padrographs sent me a dusty baker father & son card

after i had commented that it was the card i was most looking forward to finding in this year's release. the additional cards i purchased netted me a chrome refractor parallel

the other father & son card of interest to me features the guerreros, and i now have the base

black

and blue

parallels in my big daddy vladdy collection.

the vladimir guerrero card that was used for this subset comes from 2000, which was only a year old when heritage began. that means that heritage has now run through half of the flagship sets that were in place when it started. makes me feel old. as does the holliday's card from the father & son subset

thanks to the 2007 card being used for the old man.

you might recall that in the box i opened, i found an image variation of tyler fitzgerald. one of the opened boxes i bought included an image variation of brooks lee

the variation is on the left. nice pickup considering i am low key collecting lee.

between all of these purchases, i was able to complete my dodger team set. here are the dodgers i didn't show in the first heritage post - hunter feduccia

will smith

clayton kershaw

max muncy, edgardo henriquez, michael conforto, andy pages

and shohei ohtani

i also found a few more of ohtani's all-star compadres, including corbin burnes

christian yelich, william contreras, and vladimir guerrero jr

i am looking forward to the first of the banner all-star designations in next year's heritage.

i did ok with dodger parallels, including a feduccia blue border

plus a couple of chrome parallels featuring ohtani

there were many light blue sparkle chrome refractor parallels for me, too, including these three dodgers

plus the league championships card

the base of this card was one of the few dodger short prints that i didn't pull from my first box of heritage, but it was there in the cards that i purchased

along with the world series short print

i appreciate seeing dave roberts on the card, plus the freddie freeman walkoff grand slam and walker buehler, too! even better, i added the chrome and the chrome light blue sparkle refractor parallels

but wait - why did topps change the layout of the card from paper to chrome? two of the four outside photos swapped places, and four of the five photos on the card are cropped differently. stranges.

here are those other insert parallels i foreshadowed earlier. these are yoshinobu yamamoto's

and mookie betts'

1976 revisited foil parallels. this insert set not only reimagined the card front design, but the back as well. here's a comparison of the card backs - original, 2025 base, and 2025 1976 revisited

the brighter back helps, but the green background would have been the first thing to go if i were redesigning things.

ok, i know it's not all about the dodgers or inserts, so here are some non-dodger, non-insert cards i found interesting enough to scan.

juan soto

topps is not waiting for high numbers this year to get soto out there in mets' pinstripes.

jose miranda record breaker

records aren't just broken by superstars, and topps did a good job this year to include jose miranda and danny jansen (i am still looking for one of the jansen cards, unfortunately). although i was at one of the games that was part of miranda's streak, it wasn't the one pictured on the card so i am not keeping this card in my "games i have seen" collection.

sonny gray's card, however, is a keeper

that's because he is wearing number 42 on jackie robinson day!

evan carter's card is a high number/short print

and i took note of the text on the back

over the years, i have sold cards to a players' relative or two, as well as the photographer whose image was used on a card. i've also filled sportlots orders for a blogger and the father of a blogger. most recently, jason grilli was buying up copies of his 2013 topps card on sportlots, including the two that were in my inventory.

speaking of sportlots, i had to go there to finish my topps news all-time all-stars subset set

my previous purchased netted all but the roberto clemente. i don't mind topps overloading this set with outfielders, although i will admit i was curious to see who topps would put at third base (schmidt or robinson?) for the record, i would pick schmidt. anyway, after last year's debacle with the mvp subset, i am just glad that they included both the father & sons and the all-time all-stars.

here's a sharp looking julio rodriguez red border parallel

and a triston casas chrome refractor blue parallel

plus a couple of chrome refractor green parallels

those green parallels came from the opened boxes. i didn't get anything like that in the box i opened.

here are some of the all-time all-stars in chrome parallel fashion - ernie banks is a sparkle refractor

willie mays is a light blue sparkle refractor

and hank aaron is a good ol' chrome parallel

aaron, being a member of the braves, reminded me that my purchases were a good one for a braves fan. in amongst my purchases, i found three braves blue parallels

a chrome refractor parallel of orlando arcia

and a sparkle refractor parallel of austin riley

the mega box yielded a clubhouse collection single player dual relic of ronald acuna jr

which isn't too bad. 

i know i am all over the place with this post, but bear with me - almost done. one of the reasons i decided to buy the open boxes was that one of the cards visible in the lone photo was this 1976 al downing buyback

i have mostly been targeting the quartet of steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes when it comes to heritage buybacks, but i will add other dodgers if the mood strikes.

case in point, i picked up dusty baker's 1976 topps traded card in buyback form, too

it's interesting to note that the stamp on baker's card is lower than the stamp on downing's card. this is good to see as topps is playing attention again to stamp placement. i have a card from 2024 heritage high numbers that i haven't shown yet that demonstrates this as well.

with the bill russell and davey lopes cards already in hand, i was happy to find ron cey's card, too

and i also upgraded my lopes buyback

still no sight of the steve garvey card or the stolen base league leaders card, but i was able to add the one that i was most excited about - the davey lopes record breaker!

believe it or not, i have another heritage post in the queue. stay tuned!