the shipping hit the fan

last november, i placed an order at comc. i hadn't done so for a while, and when i decided to request shipment, i dutifully wore my store credit balance down to $5.99 by adding some random cards to my purchases. the joke was on me, however, as i was not aware that they had changed the pricing of their shipping.

i had more than 50 cards in "my possession", so i was lumped into bulk shipping. not much to do but upload some more cash and get the cards. i was a bit bitter about it as i know many of you have been. not sure how i missed this change, but it is a flaw in comc's system that you can't check shipping costs without advancing to the request shipment page. sure, you don't have to follow through at that point, but i guess i am used to sportlots or ebay where the shipping is more transparent.

once i requested shipment, the original estimated ship date was december 10, but it was later moved to late january. the cards arrived sooner than that - in late december - so i can't complain too much about that.

much of what i ordered was intended for specific posts, or has now been set aside for specific posts, but there were still quite a few cards that were "add ons" or one offs and so i'll post them here.

some of the cards that will be shown in the future revolve around targeting specific parallel sets (to completion!) but these 2013 topps update target red parallels of clayton kershaw

ronald belisario

and skip schumaker

bring me only slightly closer to finishing that particular dodger team set. maybe someday.

this 1992 panini french sticker of mike scioscia

is the penultimate sticker i need for the team set (now just need the sparkly dodger logo sticker) and this 2016 topps gypsy queen duke snider short print

was also the second-to-last card i needed for the team set. i have since acquired the last card, but i still need that last panini sticker.

this 2022 topps holiday walker buehler card

was a throw in to wear down my credit balance. i am not focused on this team set and still need five other cards to complete it.

i did, however, buy the last five cards i needed to complete the 2002 upper deck 40 man dodger team set. those cards featured brian jordan

mark grudzielanek, paul quantrill, dave hansen, and victor alvarez

not the most obscure bunch of dodgers from that set.

i also targeted examples of cards, as i know i will never complete team sets of such things as 2021 topps uk edition union jack parallels

or 2024 topps heritage high number blue borders

i did complete the dodger team set of 2024 topps heritage high number combo cards with this one (and only) dodger card

and am left needing only shohei ohtani's card to complete my 2025 topps all-star game dodger insert set of all-star game greats after adding this mike piazza card

to my collection.

these two jackie robinson cards - 2025 topps finest finest timelines insert

and 2025 topps series 1 1990 35th anniversary insert

were the last cards i needed for those two team sets. i still have some of the 1990 needs from series 2, though.

my order also paid attention to a couple of my post-dodger player collections, with these 1985 topps tiffany

1988 score glossy

and 1996 fleer ultra gold medallion edition

cards joining my don sutton and fernando valenzuela collections, respectively.

while building my order, i searched for some autographed cards of certain players, including milton bradley who was, for one season, my favorite active dodger. i pulled the trigger on his 2005 topps auto card

for a pretty low price.

the card that started this order was one i saw somewhere. it's a 2024 topps transcendent collection clayton kershaw transcendent icons chrome photo variation

it caught my eye because of the unique angle of the photo and the dodger stadium background. it's not one that is frequently seen on cardboard. i liked it so much, i bought two of them. one goes in the dodger collection, and the other in the dodger stadium collection. 

is this the last of comc for me? maybe. never say never, especially when i come across some harder to find cards that would fit nicely into my collection. still, the shipping will make future purchases slightly less likely. stay tuned i guess.

now that was unexpected

flashback four years and one week to topps issuing this turn back the clock card featuring dodger bobby abreu

i finally picked one up as part of an ebay purchase last year. the seller had some deal going on, and i suppose pretty much everyone who wanted one of these cards had it in their possession already, so i got a good deal. for the record, mickey mantle had 2,415 hits. abreu wound up with 2,470.

there aren't too many abreu as a dodger cards being made these days - let alone abreu cards in general - which is a bit puzzling as his career is arguably hall of fame worthy. he did bounce around a bit towards the end of his career and he missed out on both the phillies' and yankees' world series titles, but i still think he should show up on checklists more frequently.

the same seller had this card that i also added to my purchase 

that's a 2022 topps throwback thursday 1991 topps terminator design mike piazza card.

"i'll be back" soon with another post.

world cup stickers from another part of the world

here's a non-baseball post that makes sense with the 2026 world cup underway. my wife and i recently traveled to the uk and i took notice of panini stickers and topps "soccer" product in a lot of places. in particular, the panini world cup stickers were very prominent - i saw that product in a variety of formats and in a number of convenience stores, drug stores and airport stores.

i gave in and bought a pack of stickers from a "department store" in lerwick, scotland for not too much - maybe even less than a quid. here's the front of the 7 sticker pack

and here's the back:

i considered buying some larger packs but then remembered that i didn't really care about this product. as for the pack i did purchase, i opened it when i returned home. here are the contents:

the stickers list the players' current team, with the country that they will (presumably - i am not familiar with the rosters) represent in the world cup tournament.

i don't recognize any of these names, but i will list them here with their club teams and then their national teams.

mario pasalic - atalanta bc (ita); croatia

ivan basic - fc astana (kaz); bosnia and herzegovina

noussair mazraoui - manchester united fc; morocco

mathias olivera - ssc napoli (sta); uruguay

mohamed toure - randers fc (den); australia

gervane kastaneer - persis solo fc (idn); curacao

nico schlotterbeck - borussia dortmund (ger); germany

here are the backs:

these are smaller than standard cards - they are 2 inches by 2.5 inches - and are reminiscent of the topps stickers of the 80's as well as some of the non-standard sized recent topps baseball sticker releases.

to be clear, i am not collecting these stickers - this was just a purchase for a post sort of thing. however, i've sent them on to someone who is working on the sticker book so they aren't going to waste.

for those of you who celebrate - enjoy the tournament!

2026 topps series 2 blaster review

i pre-ordered a mega box (not yet shipped) and a blaster/value box (arrived on release day - june 10) directly from topps back on may 11 when series 2 was first offered. let's take a look at the six packs i opened from the blaster.

pack 1:

not a lot to say now that this is the second go around for the card design. pitchers pitching, batters batting. one fielder and a couple of base runners.

the nolan arenado stars of mlb insert is the start of what was a fairly diamondback heavy blaster, and the jt realmuto holiday foil (base - sun) is the one "new" thing in the pack.

pack 2:

four dbacks in this pack. the adrian del castillo card is clearly showing off a dodger stadium background, so i suppose i will add it to that mini-collection. i've sort of begun gatekeeping that collection a bit more.

chase delauter is one of the rookie cards people were anticipating with series 2, but his bat has cooled off after a hot first week to the season. the last three cards are all inserts/parallels with the oswaldo cabrera card being a rainbow foil. the adrian beltre card is from the "glove works" insert set (no wes parker or steve garvey on the checklist), and the munetaka murakami stars of mlb insert was nice to find instead of someone else. as i write this, i note that murakami has either homered or struck out in exactly 50% of his at bats so far this season. that's 20 homers and 80 k's in 200 official at bats. 

pack 3:

paul gervase is my first series 2 dodger, and he's actually still with the team (although his card is airbrushed). the big news in this pack, however, is that someone at topps forgot to turn on a level in the "titans of the game" insert images before sending them to the printer.

that jackson chourio card at the bottom of the image looks empty. i knew what it was, but still turned the card over 

to confirm that it was indeed a titans of the game card. as a reminder, here is what these cards looked like in series 1

a bit different from series 2

let's cleanse the palate with a look at the back of gervase's card

gervase has appeared in a couple of games for the dodgers this season. if he had not, he would have been in zach lee and bruce brubaker territory in that he would have had a dodger card of his own while appearing in only one game for the club.

pack 4:

here we have justin verlander back in detroit, another diamondback, satchel paige keeping the browns' legacy alive, and a stars of mlb card featuring a red sox rookie that i am not familiar with.

pack 5:

the penultimate pack of the blaster was my favorite, largely because of kiké hernandez showing up, but it also included the "hit" of the blaster - the gold holofoil parallel of heston kjerstad. those are numbered to 399 on the back

speaking of backs, let's look at kiké's

nine-plus dodger seasons in the books for him, and he is the franchise's all-time leader in postseason games played. i am hopeful that he recovers from his injury and increases that number this fall.

pack 6:

perhaps the worst pack of the bunch. the combo card is strikingly boring compared to the action shots on the other cards, and the marcell ozuna card boasts a poor photoshop job. at least the juan soto insert is different - it's a league leader type card but is from the "crooked numbers" insert set.

i still have a mega box yet to be delivered, so i'll get another chance to rip some series 2 packs. i don't think i'll purchase any additional sealed product from this set, however. let me know if you have some dodgers to trade!

the patron saint of card shops

i don't really think there is such a thing as a patron saint for card shops, but after a semi-recent work related visit to st. cloud, i think ol' clodoald for whom the minnesota city is named might fit the bill. a few times over the last couple of years i have driven through and seen the "sports cards - cafe" sign from the highway, but i've never stopped in. this time, i had about fifteen minutes to spare and so made the stop. i am glad i did.

note that the shop "the fan zone" is not also a cafe, and it is actually in waite park and not st. cloud, but it's close enough. it's in an enclosed strip mall (minnesota has many of these for obvious reasons) and there is a cafe within the strip mall as well, hence the sign. there's also a quilting shop. anyway, this particular card shop is huge. it's the biggest shop i've been in for quite some time. and, for a shop that size, it is really well organized. sure, there are random dig boxes throughout, but it's not a mess.

there was a table right when i walked in that had a large amount of 2026 topps product, and the further i ventured there were long glass cases, more tables and cases with a variety of stuff, and then shelves of monster dig boxes. so many shelves and so many boxes. all sports by sport, plus some labeled as "miscellaneous". it looked like most were fifty cent boxes, with some "as priced". as i mentioned, i did not have much time, so i looked at one of the "as priced" boxes that had cards in toploaders.

i wound up taking three cards from the box. first, a 2026 topps shohei ohtani profiles insert

which includes a quote attributed to ken griffey jr on the back

the kid is not as verbose as tony gwynn was back in 1996

the second card was a 2008 topps moment & milestones gary sheffield black parallel numbered to 25

and the third was a 2023 topps cody bellinger 1988 relic card

the most interesting thing i saw in this box was this

that's a business card from hall of famer harmon killebrew, complete with his home address and a phone number. i would love to know who he gave this card to - i can't imagine he handed them out willy-nilly. if it had been signed, i might have gone for it (of course the price would have been higher). i do have a bob watson mlb business card signed by the former astro back from when he worked in the league offices. this would have made a nice counterpart.

after leaving harmon behind, i decided to look at one of the vintage dig boxes closer to the entrance to the store, and found a 1965 topps don drysdale embossed insert

i guess i am collecting these now, as big d gives me half of the dodger team set (i picked up the tommy davis at a mall show last year) with only ron fairly and sandy koufax left to obtain.

there were a couple of other cards that interested me, but the condition was not quite where i wanted it to be.

it's been a bit since i opened any new product, so i looked at a couple of items on the bargain table, which were mostly 2025 topps holiday (christmas) balls and boxes. instead, i went for a 2025 topps series 1 holiday egg that was listed at $14.99 but rang up at $12.99. in fact, the four singles i picked also showed up at a reduced price once rang up. in all, i spent $24.09. not bad for a brick and mortar setting.

the egg wasn't too interesting until i got to the end where the parallels and inserts are, and even then there is just one card i will show

i guess i picked the proper egg for a dodger collector. i don't pick up too many ohtani parallels on the secondary market, so finding this holiday foil parallel in a "pack" was a nice surprise.

i was sort of hoping to find a 2026 topps celebration mega box, but didn't see any (i didn't look at the product behind the counters, nor did i ask). instead, i bought some of those inserts from sportlots around the same time as this visit.

mookie betts game day drip

mookie betts perennial all-stars

and alex freeland 8 bit ballers

those inserts came along with some other "regular" series 1 inserts from sportlots

stars of mlb mookie betts

2025 greatest hits freddie freeman

clayton kershaw rainbow foil

and jackie robinson profiles

with another succinct statement from ken griffey jr

which says it all, really.

i think i am ready for series 2 as well as another trip to that card shop!