when a penny is worth a quarter and other tales from the card shows

it was business as usual at the june twin cities collector club card show, with yours truly arriving as the doors opened and then making the handful of regular stops at tables with bargain boxes. as usual, the boxes included dime, quarter, dollar, and two dollar boxes, with the latter two belonging to a seller who gives good discounts from those posted prices.

one card i pulled from one of the quarter boxes was this one

it's a 2005 upper deck artifacts brad penny card. i took it because i know that my mid-2000 upper deck non-flagship dodger team sets aren't necessarily complete. it wasn't until i got home that i realized it was a promo. yes, i did not notice the "ud promo" text across the front.  here's the back:

i don't know how these promos were distributed, but there are a few dodgers included. i certainly was in need of this penny card that cost a quarter.

from the dime box vendor, i took a couple of 2020 topps 206 series 1 cards. first, a gavin lux

sovereign back

and next, a gerrit cole

polar bear back

the polar bear backs were 1:18 packs

some other dime box cards included this 2023 panini donruss gavin stone purple holo parallel

a 2021 topps archives 1989 big foil elvis andrus card

for the double play collection, and a 2024 topps lawrence butler gameday drip insert

this card caught my eye for a couple of reasons. first, unlike the other gameday drip cards i've seen, this one features the subject in their baseball uniform. this makes sense to me, although i get the other side showing players in their walk-in ensembles. anyway, i also took notice of butler wearing number 4. my high school team modeled its uniforms after the late-80's athletics look, and i wore number 4 so i definitely like the look of this card!

back to the quarter box, i rescued this "gem"

that is an honest to goodness beat up 1983 topps tony gwynn rookie. here's the back:

it's not a card that i need - i have a couple of complete sets, plus the one from my dad's collection - but i figured i would remove it from the indignity of a bargain box. who knows, maybe this will be fuji's next wallet card.

i also nabbed a couple of green parallels from 2022 topps gypsy queen. one of a retiring sure-to-be hall of famer, and one that is a "color match"

these next few came from the dollar (or 7 for $5, but really even less than that) box

2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary babe ruth

2005 topps heritage moises alou sp

2010 topps warren spahn legends variation

i will always pick up a legends variation when i see it in these boxes. same goes for cards of the bambino on the 1952 topps design. heritage short prints are in the "sometimes always" category.

there were some 2026 inserts and parallels that i also purchased, including these 8 bit ballers

this pair of andrew mccutchen varieties

and a series 2 holiday parallel of juan soto

soto got a hero number in series 2

which is absolutely justified by those stats.

one more card from the dollar box - a 2026 topps heritage kris bryant black parallel

these have a print run of 50 so i was surprised to see it. there is a touch of damage to the bottom border, similar to the black border card that i pulled (and returned to topps but have not yet received my replacement) so i am guessing that's why it was in the bargain box. it was with some other color parallels from this year's heritage, including some dark grays, so it was obvious that it is a black border.

from the same seller i took this 2020 topps heritage christian yelich card

seeing these cards back-to-back here reminds me of how my mind was blown a bit when i realized that 1977 topps is just a revision of 1971 topps with capital letters for the player name, white borders, and a position pennant. small changes with the same basic design. seeing the bryant card makes it more obvious how similar the two designs are.

anyway, i picked up the yelich card because it's a mini, numbered to 100 on the back

i have been stockpiling some brewer cards in anticipation of thorzul's "trade me anything" event which was postponed from its usual timing last winter. hopefully it is a tradition that has not yet come to an end.

more topps heritage black borders from 2018

and 2019

plus another topps legend variation - this one from 2011 topps

robin roberts passed away in 2010 so i am sure he was in the minds of the topps folks who determined who would be included on these cards.

a couple more cards that i couldn't pass up - these are vintage stock parallels from 2025 topps update

i need to track down a 2026 example. these are much more interesting to me since topps started putting more thought into them in 2024.

as for more obvious cards for my collection, i found some from each of the sellers i visited.

here's a 2016 topps perspectives insert of randy johnson

for the tatooine collection, and a 2026 topps 1991 insert of vladimir guerrero

for that pc that i maintain.

as for dodgers, here's an alex freeland 1991 insert

a tommy edman sandglitter parallel

and a teoscar hernandez rainbow foil parallel

from this year's flagship.

other needed cards i picked up included a 2019 pedro baez rainbow foil parallel

a 2019 topps heritage kenta maeda chrome purple refractor parallel

and the same parallel, but of walker buehler from 2020 topps heritage

another buehler parallel - the aqua wave refractor from 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary

here's a 2024 panini prizm pink ice parallel of emmet sheehan

and a couple of 2025 freddie freeman cards - chrome all-etch insert

and holiday gold lights parallel

finally, from 2025 topps update i found a hyeseong kim 1990 insert

and a purple holofoil parallel of evan phillips

overall, a pretty good haul for my collection.

i will also mention that one of the sellers had quite a few of these 2019 topps cross-product inserts of the greatest players, greatest seasons, and greatest moments across the 150 years of professional baseball. 

whenever i see them i get the urge to build the sets, but then remember that some of the cards are harder to find than others. maybe if i just stick to the series 1, 2, and update inserts. we will see, but in the meantime, ruth, lou gehrig, and fighter pilot ted williams were no-brainers to pick up at the card show.

heritage took me long enough

i certainly didn't expect to wait more than three months to post my 2026 topps heritage dodger team set, but here we are thanks to an inordinate number of short prints. of course, my main focus when it comes to heritage these years is the 50th (not really) anniversary buybacks of a certain infield. for the first time, i was able to find all four cards of steve garvey

ron cey

bill russell

and dave lopes

fairly easily, although there was some stress involved related to best offers sent. of the four, russell turned out to be the most elusive, although i haven't seen more than three garveys pop up for sale. these four dodgers have appeared in sets since 1973/2022 topps heritage, but i didn't find a lopes rookie buyback that year. in 2023 (1974 design), garvey's buyback was an mvp auto so not a 50th anniversary stamped card. the last two years, i've not found a garvey buyback at all. here's the back of his 1977 card

with the rennie stennett cartoon. i think modern metrics would not recognize garvey as an "outstanding glove man". while we're at it, here's the back of russell's card

because it features a playboy bunny.

now here's a back from 2026 heritage

it's clayton kershaw's final tribute card, and his cartoon includes his first name, which is rare for this set. here's the front

i have one for the team set and one for the final tribute binder.

let's run through the rest of the team set...

mookie betts

edwin diaz

freddie freeman

hyeseong kim

shohei ohtani

andy pages

dalton rushing

roki sasaki

emmet sheehan

will smith

yoshinobu yamamoto

2025 nlcs (shohei ohtani)

with some less than impressive team batting stats on the back

those are just the nlcs stats, so not really the dodgers' "postseason" stats.

now for those short prints, here are the three world series highlight cards

the first one has the dodger batting stats on the back

and the second one

features tyler glasnow (who doesn't have a base card) and the blue jays' offensive stats

the third one

has the pitching details

not all of the stats, however. still, nice to see kershaw's clutch 0.1 innings of work represented.

other dodger short prints include jack dreyer

teoscar hernandez

and max muncy

whose card back pays tribute to r. jackson

that's reggie, not ron. i hope topps did this on purpose, pairing the mr. october cartoon with muncy's text, both referencing 14 postseason homers. both achieved that in the span of 10 years, but muncy's have crossed the 2010s and 2020s.

the other dodger short prints are the four-on-one rookie cards

paul gervases, justin dean, alex freeland, and jack little are the dodgers featured. these days, justin dean is in the cubs' organization, and little is with the tigers' system. gervase and freeland have both appeared for the dodgers this season. with dean being claimed by the giants right after the world series, i worried that there would be no dodger card of the world series hero, but we have this one to cherish.

next year's heritage release will be a big deal for me, and i will certainly work hard to collect the dodger buybacks. i didn't really have that intent this year outside of the four infielders, but i found some fairly cheaply and so didn't pass them up. i now have most of the team set in buyback form, including dusty baker

whose card back i enjoy because of the mark fidrych cartoon

bill buckner on his final dodger card

ed goodson

burt hooton

whose card back shows that even topps was not immune to the "burt/bert" confusion. for the record, it's "burt", not "bert", and topps got it right two out of three times on this card

i might see if i have an extra '77 hooton to add to my double play collection thanks to the tinker to evers to chance cartoon.

charlie hough

whose card back i scanned for some reason

lee lacy

whose card back i scanned because of the brooklyn dodger symphony (sym-phony?) cartoon

dave lopes league leader

whose back i scanned because of the names on the stolen base leader board

prime 1970s guys right there. don baylor with over 50 steals and buckner pushing 30 (he did have 30 swipes one year) are numbers that in later years would seem unthinkable for them.

manny mota

who did not pinch hit for pedro borbon, but whose card back let me know who it was that caught roger maris' 61st home run

durante passed away in 2022, and i assume he was aware that he was featured on this card. the story goes that he was on a date with his future wife, so perhaps that is meant to be her in the cartoon as well. 

rick rhoden

whose card back confused me because of denny mclain being depicted as a southpaw in the cartoon

it also reminds me of just how good rhoden was.

reggie smith

whose card back is not all that interesting

although it is from this and other smith card backs that i came to realize he and don sutton were born on the same day. i don't have sutton's buyback, but i do have elias sosa's

and stan wall's

sosa's 2015 topps originals buyback of his 1978 card has been elusive and is probably one of my most wanted cards that is not on my nefarious 9 list. so far, i've settled for some other dodger buybacks oft he reliever but i still look for the 2015 buyback regularly. as for wall, his was the first non-infielder buyback i purchased this year.

steve yeager

rounds out the field for the then-active players in buyback form, but i have my eye on a couple others out there. his card back ages satchel paige in a humorous way

i am not quite as old as paige was when he last appeared in the major leagues, but i now take offense to the need for a cane at what i now consider to be a young age!

the last buyback i have (as of now) is maury wills' turn back the clock card

such a great card for dodger collectors. i was hoping heritage would feature some tbtc moments from dodger (or dodger stadium) history this year, but they did not. some instances i had in mind were sandy koufax's final season (1966), rick monday saves the flag (1976), fernandomania (1981), and the 4-in-1 game (2006). i made a tbtc card that should have been of the monday event a long time ago, as well as a 2007 topps season highlight card of the 4-in-1 game. i really would have liked to have seen real cardboard for those events.

i previously showed the clubhouse collection cards i've picked up from this year's heritage release, but i didn't show this "flashbacks" relic card of garvey's

that features satchel paige? on the back

if it were satchel, the quote might be something different.

there are also autographs to consider, and the only one i've added is garvey's

the back is pretty generic

i would think they could have reversed the image of the cartoon for a righty like garvey. the cartoon becomes a throwaway when it has no relevance so why bother?

as for parallels, i pulled this yellow jack dreyer card

myself. there are reportedly 480 dark yellow parallels of each card based on published print run data.

the rest of these parallels came from sportlots, or maybe one or two from ebay.

light purple andy pages

with a print run of 580

base chrome of teoscar hernandez, clayton kershaw, and will smith

each one of 4,330

chrome refractors of kershaw and hyeseong kim

also unnumbered this year, but a reported run of 1,700 instead of the expected 1,977

teoscar hernandez chrome light blue sparkle

is one of 1,935 

dalton rushing chrome burgundy sparkle

with a print run of 580

i more recently decided to go for as large of a rainbow as possible with the kershaw cards. so far, i have red, dark yellow, green, light purple, dark gray, pink sparkle, silver sparkle, light blue sparkle, burgundy sparkle

i wouldn't mind adding others to this effort!

i also picked up a non-dodger insert

that bryce harper ready and action insert goes in the tatooine collection.

so, my 2026 heritage dodger team set is complete, at least until high numbers comes out. speaking of which, i've still not completed the 2025 high numbers team set. i did add a couple of blue parallels to my collection earlier this year

but that tommy edman card might be as close as i get to having his base short print card. time will tell.

stay tuned!