still scratching that 17 year itch

it wasn't too long after i had completed the 2007 topps chrome dodger team set that i decided to go after the blue refractor parallels. the base chrome cards seemed pretty lackluster, and with the chunky borders, the blue refractors were fantastically blue! it took me a while, but i got there, and i recently finished off the regular refractor and white refractor team sets, too.

here's the base dodger team set for comparison purposes later on.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young  

the black borders don't do the base chrome any favors, and shame on topps (and other companies at the time) for including autographs as base cards.

now here is the blue refractor team set - note that there was no delwyn young card in the blue refractor style

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux  

having the blue refractors but not the regular refractors gnawed on me a bit, so i got that job done.

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young                

much, much brighter, of course. the young card is numbered to 500 in refractor form.

now for the white border refractors

j.d drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, brad penny, juan pierre

chad billingsley, jason schmidt, matt kemp

randy wolf, takashi saito, russell martin

derek lowe, greg maddux, delwyn young    

the "pop" on these is largely background dependent. speaking of backgrounds, there was no nomar garciaparra chrome card in 2007, but he is in the background of chad billingsley's card.

the white refractors are numbered to 660 - hard to see on the scanned card back

but the delwyn young auto is only numbered to 200

interestingly enough, i have no xfractors in my collection. maybe that's next. or, the red refractor parallels. there is always something to chase!

the 17 year itch

after completing the 1992, 1993, and 1994 topps dodgers gold parallel team sets (and seeing night owl's complete 2008 topps series 1 and 2 dodgers gold parallel team set), i figured that it was time to complete a numbered gold parallel team set, and i decided that it would be 2007 topps. i chose that set mainly because it has big, chunky borders that allow for a lot of color, but also it does not include any rookie or early career clayton kershaw cards that i missed out on in real time!

i had maybe a third of the team set when i started, and it took me a few months to pull it all together, but i managed.  so, here is the complete 2007 topps gold parallel dodger team set

j.d. drew, andre ethier, rafael furcal

jeff kent, james loney, jonathan broxton

brad penny, grady little, delwyn young

greg maddux, juan pierre, jason schmidt

matt kemp, randy wolf, luis gonzalez

takashi saito, russell martin, wilson betemit

derek lowe, chad billingsley, ramon martinez

dodger team card

 

but that's not all - i also completed the update team set

brady clark, david wells, mark hendrickson

olmaedo saenz, hong-chih kuo, tony abreu

andy laroche, russell martin, brad penny

takashi saito, russell martin (alex rodriguez) combo, russell martin (cole hamels) combo

scott proctor

the proctor card was the last of these that i acquired. there weren't too many options when it came to purchasing the vagabond reliever's card, but thankfully one of the two sellers who had high hopes with their buy-it-now prices sent an offer that was pretty reasonable and i was able to complete the set.

there are a lot of "let's remember some guys" up there, but i remember being pretty happy with kemp and martin and ethier showing up. luis gonzalez not so much. and, as you can see, there are definitely some differences in the pigmentation of the gold across the collection.

another difference is the numbering on the back. topps switched the orientation of the serial numbering between flagship series 1 and 2 and update. ramon martinez is from series 2 and olmedo saenz is from update

ok, so it's hard to see, but on the flagship card, the 2007 is closest to the topps logo, and in update it's closest to the player inset photo. and, how great is it that topps noted each of these as "gold parallel" on the back?!

with the black borders, topps was in need of a different treatment for the other-colored border parallels (this was before camo /25 and all that). they went with copper

which was numbered to 56

the low print run black border parallels debuted in 2003 and were numbered to 52 copies. since then they have increased in production by one to match the "years of collecting" on the front. as far as i can tell, 2007 is the only year that the border for these cards hasn't been black.

i have no plans to chase the copper parallel set, but i do have more 17 year itch to scratch. stay tuned!

where's the now with?

those of you who have been around for awhile know how much i love o-pee-chee cards. heck, i dedicated a whole separate blog to documenting the variations through the years. i was also very excited about the 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee release back when it came out. sure, i was disappointed that they were not able to hijack an actual topps design masquerading as o-pee-chee (like they had for 2002 vintage) and also that they eschewed the variations that made o-pee-chee cards so great during the late 1970's through the early 1990's.

that said, they did have some cards that weren't in those original o-pee-chee releases such as a variety of inserts and even game used cards. the game used cards are quite colorful, and i've had this one featuring a trio of twins 

in my "meaningful and just because" catch-all mini-collection for quite some time. by the way, i think it was a huge miss to not line up the players - joe nathan, joe mauer, and michael cuddyer - with their positions - p, c, and o - respectively.

i was also sure to pick up this one featuring a trio of dodgers - andre ethier, james loney, and matt kemp

early on as well.

it took me a bit longer to add the other true dodger relic cards to my collection, but i have them now. they feature russell martin

along with fellow backstops victor martinez and joe mauer, and chad billingsley

with the guy who was really roberto hernandez but went by fausto carmona and future dodger zack greinke.

that was it as far as dodgers on the official checklist, but i spied a couple other cards that i could reasonably consider dodger cards, like this brad penny card

that he shares with a couple of roys - oswalt and halladay.  penny is shown as a dodger but listed with his new team, the red sox.  he also shows up on a card with josh beckett and aj burnett

on a card where all three players could have used some "now with..." text. same for this last one, which features takashi saito along with brad lidge and billy wagner

each of whom were on the move between the 2008 and 2009 seasons. 

2009 o-pee-chee was a fun set to collect, but it certainly wasn't o-pee-chee in anything other than name. if only there were some "now with..." sprinkled throughout!

and it's all over now, 2007 topps chrome blue

it was just over four years ago that i posted about completing the 2011 topps chrome atomic refractor dodger team set and was turning my attention to completing the 2007 topps chrome blue refractor dodger team set.  at that time, i needed just four more dodger cards, and, for the last two years and three months, i have needed only one.  it has sat at the top of my 'nefarious 9' list of most wanted cards on the sidebar of my blogs for pretty much that entire time. last week, it arrived.

2007 topps chrome takashi saito blue refractor

i had multiple ebay saved searches for this card, with no luck, although i did recently see someone selling a lot of 151 blue refractors, and was considering asking them to pull this card out of the lot for me.  i would also periodically check comc and the beckett marketplace.  more frequently, i would search on sportlots which is where i ultimately found the card.  it had been listed for no more than a week, i would say.  it is strange to many i am sure, but there is so much joy in finding a card that has been so elusive. 

i've received some other blue cards recently:

2005 upper deck jayson werth blue parallel

jon of penny sleeves fame sent the werth with a few other cards. i had to do a little bit of research to figure out exactly what this was, which was good because i learned that the blue parallels were only part of series 2 that year. this fact that helped me understand that the card i have of milton bradley and thought was a blue parallel is really a retro parallel. so thanks jon!

1998 leaf rookies & stars raul mondesi true blue parallel

this one came from nick at dime boxes.  i did not know that these true blue parallels existed, but they fall right in line for dodger collectors such as myself.  they are not numbered, but are marked as "1 of 500" on the back.

nick sent some other colorful and chromy stuff:

2002 topps chrome dodgers team refractor

the 2002 topps chrome refractors are very nice. this one will go in my dodger stadium binder. it has a nice shot of the right field corner there behind the team with the stadium club restaurant in the upper right part of the card.

2005 topps chrome hee-seop choi red refractor

this is the first red refractor i've seen from 2005 topps chrome. it's cool and numbered to 25.  the thick borders of 2005 chrome lend themselves nicely to color parallels, but alas, there were no blue parallels that year.

i mentioned that the saito card at the top of the post was a-number 1 on my list of most wanted cards.  nick also knocked a card off of that same list with this 2018 topps big league corey seager card

 

and i picked up another in this 1997 fleer ultra darren dreifort card

little d looks strong! i appreciate the no batting gloves look, too.

so, with the 2007 blue refractor team set now complete, what's next?  well, i had already noted that i was going to target 2003 topps chrome in 2019, and i've finished the base set.  now, my primary team set focus will be on the 2003 topps chrome refractors, which just happen to come in blue, as dave roberts can attest:

hideo nomo's card in the set has been added to the most wanted list, but i also need a few more:

19 hideo nomo
91 adrian beltre
202 franklin gutierrez fy rc

and that doesn't include the chrome traded refractors:

t7 todd hundley
t73 rickey henderson
t99 fred mcgriff
t125 chin-feng chen
t162 james loney oros
t187 thomari story-harden fy rc
t205 eric riggs
t242 shane victorino fy rc

can you help a blogger out? this may take another 4 years...