hey jesse! now chrome!

there is no jessie, but as far as chrome goes, every "time" it is released, i am resigned to purchasing a box or some packs because "i think i want to know ya".  that was the case this year, although i was once again reminded that there is not much new there. i like the refractors fine, but it gets repetitive. anyway, before i show some 2023 stuff i realized that i didn't say much about 2022 topps chrome last year (which probably says all you need to know), but i scanned a bunch of the cards and "i need to show ya" so "check it out".

i'll start off with some of the non-parallel inserts, like this mookie betts "pinstriped" card

i have no idea why this insert set is call "pinstriped". the dodgers, of course, do not have a pinstriped uniform.

max muncy "heart of the city"

i am a bit turned around with the photo of downtown los angeles, but it looks like the photo was taken from the east looking west, perhaps somewhere between the 1st street viaduct and the 101. this would put giant max muncy in westlake, a bit north of macarthur park.

trea turner "new classics"

the back of the card compares turner to hall of famer tim raines, who i guess would then be considered an "old classic", or i suppose just "classic"

here's turner's base card

which is his base and not the chrome sonic base, even thought the topps chrome logo is on the left.

as i mentioned, i still go for refractors, so here are some base refractors - andre jackson

and justin turner

plus muncy paired with his sepia refractor

i have sepia refractors of clayton kershaw

and julio urias

as well.

pink refractors are still provided in retail stuff (blasters, i think), and here's justin turner's

and kershaw's

here's a prism refractor of mookie betts

and the xfractor of kershaw

there are, of course, way more refractor parallels out there, including a large number of numbered parallels.

chrome update is also still a thing, with their exclusive purple refractors like freddie freeman's here

and this nice josh rojas double play turn here

and then there are the extra chrome sets, like chrome sapphire edition

which is a true parallel set to flagship - series 1, 2, and update. i only have a few, including will smith's card, which features a whole lot of blue!

another chrome set issued the last couple of years has been chrome black. i have a couple base cards that i've picked up, but mostly what i've added from these releases are more steve garvey autograph cards. here are the ones from 2022 that i've picked up

"base"

refractor /199

green refractor /99

gold refractor /50

the "wormhole" background shows up pretty well on the refractors. i always wonder about chrome cards that don't look very appealing in their non-refractor format - like what is the point?

aside from chome sonic (and, i suppose, chrome ben baller) perhaps the most useless chrome release in 2022 was "logofractor". i found a kershaw card cheap 

i think the seller got it confused with an xfractor. topps is just a step away from the panini-esque emoji parallels. in fact, i wonder if this is them flaunting their license in panini's face.

as for 2023 topps chrome, here's kershaw's base card

which is just the chrome-ified version of his base card. i picked up a base dodger team set, and didn't see any differences between the other cards and their flagship versions, either. however, i also picked up a couple of packs and did notice that michael harris ii got a different photo in chrome

so at least that is different.  i really do hope fanatics is going to pull back on some of the chrome releases in 2023 - only (the) "time" will tell.