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.

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!

that's really super, super teams

2002 topps super teams can perhaps be considered a precursor to upper deck's 2004 legends timeless teams release in that it focused on specific team subsets without including every franchise on the checklist. however, super teams was even more focused, and with more player representation, than timeless teams.

in my most recent trade with sluggo, i received nearly the entire dodger team set in retrofractor form. these cards are numbered to the season represented, so in the dodgers' case that means 1955

the only card not included was jackie robinson's, but a quick online purchase later, and that was remedied

in addition to the 1955 dodgers, the teams in the set are the 1954 giants, the 1957 braves, the 1960 pirates, the 1961 yankees, the 1967 cardinals, the 1969 mets, the 1970 orioles. the 1974 a's, and the 1986 mets. the mets are the only team to show up twice, and i think roger maris and gil hodges are the only two to appear for more than one team in the set.

i had a couple of these retrofractors in my collection already, but was excited to complete the set so easily. they look pretty sharp in person, and are similar to some of the bowman heritage parallels from around the same timeframe. i had hoped that there would be a sequel to this set to include other super teams, but so far it's been a one and done.

1955 bowman complete through 104!

my 1955 bowman set is coming together at a decent pace, and i've completed a few more front end sheets to share.

here is sheet 12, cards 89 through 96

hall of famer lou boudreau is probably the biggest name here, but hank thompson's card gave me the toughest time to acquire. andy seminick seems out of place as he upsets the teammate pairing, but that is becoming more common as we progress through the set.

here are the backs:

it's nice to see sal maglie's nickname mentioned on the back of his card, but there is only one non-narrative card back here. on the back of art ditmar's card, he shares several of his biggest baseball thrills, including his first big league win that came on the last day of the 1954 season. that means that ditmar is the last pitcher to record a win for the philadelphia athletics, as they relocated to kansas city for the 1955 season. staying on that topic, jim hunter was the last kansas city a's pitcher to win a game, and j.t. ginn holds that distinction for the oakland version of the a's.

here is sheet 13, cards 97 through 104

this is a great sheet of cards with johnny podres, jim gilliam, jerry coleman, bobby thomson, and eddie mathews. on this sheet, it's don johnson who is out of place and messing up the teammate duos.

here are the backs:

ted williams, who is famously absent from this set, is namechecked on the back of thomson's card as the best hitter thomson has ever seen.

the don johnson card is one of the cards in the set that has an error variation. the one shown above is the correct version, with this being the error

that is ernie johnson showed there. ernie obviously pitched for the braves, while don was an oriole. the back of the card is still don's

and this error is reversed on card number 157. i hope to get there with these posts very soon!