things done to card boxes (and, as a result, cards) plus archives is coming!

i have a good trading thing going on with a braves collector, but the usps must not be a fan of the packages we ship back and forth. back in july, i received a box from kevin that looked like this:

i don't even know how something like that happens. here's another view:

a full corner of the box had been ripped open. but what of the cards? here's how things looked when i opened the box:

so of course the damage occurred on the side of the box with the cards. you can see a good 10 or so cards there with corner and edge damage. there is one card with a curled corner on the opposite side of the box from the tear, which leads me to believe that the contents were spilled and put back in the box. i am hopeful that all of the cards kevin sent made their way to me, but i don't know for sure.

despite the damage, this was another fantastic group of dodger cards.

gavin lux took quite a bit of the hit from the damage, with four of his rookie cards getting some sort of punishment

the topps chrome xfractor came away with minimal impact, but the topps gallery card was pretty mangled.

same goes for a couple of cody bellinger cards

his 2017 topps update card was one of the worst conditioned cards, although the 2018 topps heritage high numbers action image variation was also beat up a bit.

perhaps the most damage was done to this 2020 topps chrome kyle garlick autographed card

it had/has a pretty strong crease running across the top right part of the card.

let's cleanse the palette with this 2022 bowman luis rodriguez chrome prospects purple wave refractor card

that made it through with just some minor damage. i say cleanse the palette because this next card was the biggest disappointment...

just a 2009 numbered clayton kershaw parallel - this one from upper deck spectrum. it got knocked about pretty good as you can see.

now, in no way shape or form am i disappointed with the trade. this is all on the usps and accidents happen.

here are most of the rest of the cards that seemed to come out of the box unscathed.

i've been on a heritage chrome kick lately, so the muncy was great to see.

the topps magazine card seemed out of place among all the modern and shiny cards, but it is no less welcome - another need crossed off the list!

a mike piazza sighting amidst some current and recent dodger studs!

lots of mosaic and prizm stuff, some of which looks great or is at least interesting. and some not so much.

a couple of justin turner cards there at the bottom showing him in full leprechaun mode.

those three 2021 topps gallery cards at the top were the first ones from that set i obtained. all parallels, too.

and there we have three inserts from 2022 topps, plus some jackie robinson and sandy koufax inserts.

i am always up for inserts, and dodger parallels, too. thankfully there were some numbered gold parallels from 2020 and 2021 provided:

while numbered higher than ever due to the increasing year, gold parallels seem to be harder to come by thanks to increased print runs.

those gold cards may be more scarce these days than relic cards, but i am still happy to find some of those, too

there we have some very standard jersey cards from 2021 panini donruss and 2022 topps. but those weren't the only relics in the box...

this is a 2001 upper deck sp legendary cuts debut bat card of eddie stanky

even though stanky is clearly shown as a new york giant in the photo (his team after he left the dodgers), this is a dodger card due to the team logo. and, as luck would have it, it was the last bat relic card i needed to complete the dodger team set from the debut bat cards subset.

the most interesting and unique card in the box was this 2016 panini national treasures pee wee reese card:

that's the front of it, as it's a booklet. open it up and this is what's inside:

a big swatch of some sort of fuzzy dodger item that pee wee supposedly wore. it sort of looks like troll doll hair. i know pee wee played with marbles as a kid, but not sure if trolls were around back then.

regardless, another great box of cards from kevin, and i am hoping we roll the dice with the usps again soon!

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today is also the day that 2022 topps archives is set to be released. i have a box on the way, and i already have my want lists up. not just the dodgers, but the full 1978 topps subset that i aim to complete in quick fashion. perhaps the highlight of the checklist is brooks robinson being included in the 1978 design, which will give us a proper final tribute (from a card design standpoint, anyway) and fill one of my most wanted "cards that should have been" desires. i just hope they use an age appropriate photo of brooks, unlike what they did with al kaline's 1975 topps design card a few years back.

anyway, send me all your 1978 design archives dupes - you will be rewarded!