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!

the almost daily dodger - andre ethier

i've been meaning to have andre ethier be the subject of one of these posts for a while now as i had quite a few of his cards languishing in my scanned folder. however, it was only after acquiring this card

that i got around to putting this post together.

that is a 2007 topps 2006 topps all-star rookie team insert or retail hanger exclusive - however you look at it. ethier's teammate russell martin was also included in the set and i have had his card for about 18 months. ethier's was much more elusive and the one i purchased (as part of the set) is the only i've seen offered for sale over the last couple of years.

it just so happens that it was my 301st andre ethier dodger card according to my inventory listed on tcdb.  here are some of the other 300 cards i have of ethier that i've added over the last few months, each of which are parallels.

2006 bowman gold parallel

2009 bowman chrome refractor parallel

2010 topps chrome refractor parallel

2011 topps marquee blue parallel

2012 topps chrome blue refractor parallel

2013 topps chrome xfractor parallel

being essentially a lifelong dodger resulted in a lot of cards, and he's shown up in a recent set or two (although i can only think of an allen & ginter set) following his retirement.

with 301 ethier cards (all as a dodger), he sits 21st in my list of players - 23 cards behind kevin brown and 33 cards ahead of ramon martinez. of course, some of those cards are duplicates in other player and/or minicollections so tcdb tells me i have only 295 unique ethier cards loaded. either way, i am behind night owl by about 20 cards in terms of the top ethier collectors on the database.

the almost daily dodger - angel pena

the dodgers sure seem to have had a large number of highly touted catching prospects since mike piazza took over behind the plate. maybe that just coincides with the proliferation of prospect focused baseball cards, but it feels like i've heard about more catchers in the dodger pipeline than any other non-pitcher position over the last 30 years.

one such prospect was angel peña, and this is his 1999 upper deck retro inkredible autograph card

i have seen this card so many times over the years, i would have sworn that i had it in triplicate. turns out, i didn't have it at all (i do have some other peña autograph cards). thankfully, night owl sent one my way.

peña was one of the catchers that the dodgers sent out in the post-mike piazza landscape during the 1998 season, but the team ultimately looked for some veterans to take over and he wasn't able to catch on (see what i did there) as anything more than a stop gap backup during his career.

night owl sent some other cards for my collection as well, including a1998 bowman chrome charles johnson card

johnson was the dodgers' catching solution immediately following the piazza trade, as he was part of the haul from the marlins that the dodgers received in exchange for the italian-american superstar slugger. johnson was then traded to the mets with roger cedeño after the 1998 season for the dodgers' next catcher, todd hundley.

here's a 1995 fleer ultra kevin gross card

that had escaped my purview. it's technically a rangers card, but he's still wearing his dodger duds so into the dodger collection it goes.

this 1999 bowman glenn davis card

is not chrome - it's the international parallel. the liberty bell is behind davis, a native of pennsylvania.

here's a 1998 pinnacle plus die-cut card of hideo nomo

it's a "lasting memories" insert, and i am not sure why it needed to have the patterned edge other than it was the 90's

i recently stated a desire to complete the dodgers' 2007 topps gold parallel team set, and getting this brad penny card

from greg was a push to make that commitment. so chunky!

he also sent a different parallel from 2007 topps update & highlights

the red text back

such nonsense.

here's a much more obvious parallel from 2010 bowman

featuring chad billingsley, along with a parallel (or not, depending on how you view the 2021 topps chrome sapphire edition set) of short-time dodger yoshi tsutsugo

he appeared in 12 games for the dodgers in 2021, in between stints in tampa bay and pittsburgh. the fact that he got a dodger card at all is pretty remarkable. perfect timing in terms of checklist development at topps.

one of my favorite cards in the package was this 2023 panini chronicles - classics card of jim gilliam

anytime i can add a new gilliam card to the collection is a good day.

there were also a few "hits" to take in, such as this 2020 bowman sterling autograph of onetime prospect jacob amaya

the dodgers dealt amaya to the marlins for miguel rojas prior to last season. he was just released by the marlins and picked up by the astros a week or two ago.

shawn green had a ton of cards during his dodger days, including relics. both of these cards - a 2001 pacific private stock game gear bat

and a 2004 upper deck authentic stars jersey

were new to my collection

finally, i  also added this 2004 topps cracker jack "take me out to the ball game" paul loduca relic

to my dodger collection because i don't care who the player is - if they are a dodger they belong in my collection.

thanks greg!

going for gold

the 2024 olympics are a few months away, so this post is about cards and not medals. i've picked up a few new topps flagship gold parallel cards recently and figured i would run through a full slate of these parallels now that 2024 series 1 is out.

the first gold cards showed up in 1992

i remember these being a pretty big deal, with one of my local shops offering a bounty for the barry bonds parallel. there was also a redemption offer in which you would receive these same parallels with "winner" stamped in gold above the team names. 

maybe one of the first "paraallel parallel" sets.

1993 saw a similar gold treatment

but with the addition of the "topps gold" logo

in 1994

there was only the name to make gold.

after that, topps took a break from the gold parallels. when they returned in 2001

there was full border foil, along with the names, and the cards were serial numbered (not shown) to the year of production.

the 2002 gold cards

aren't as obvious as scans because of the gold border that topps used for the base design. this was the first year that they added the "xx years of collecting", building from the "topps 50" logo on the 2001 cards. i've posted in the past about anniversaries vs. years of collecting so i won't bother to get into it again here.

in 2003

the names and borders were made gold, but topps left the remainder of the design blue.

2004

2005

and 2006

each had white border base designs that were changed to gold.

in 2007

the base design was black. there were no black parallels that year - instead topps used copper for the numbered "years of collecting" parallels

the next several years - 2008

2009

2010

2011

and 2012

had their white borders and names turned gold, but the "years of collecting" text fell off the cards in 2012

in 2013 

and 2014

topps applied the gold to the full design

after 2014, topps got more graphically creative with their flagship design. the golds were a pretty standard conversion in 2015

but in 2016 

the gold leaked into the photo as there was no border to color. same in 2017

and in 2018 it was all over the photo

partial gold borders were achieved in 2019

and 2020

and then back in full force in 2021

more of the same in 2022

but for some reason the gold cards in 2023

didn't get gold all the way around.

this year, 2024,

we are back to full bordered gold.

for my money the 2001 and 2007 gold parallels are my favorite, although i don't have  a lot of them. in fact, i've only completed the 1992 (and the 1992 "winners") dodger gold parallel team sets, although the last 1994 card i need is on its way to me. night owl just recently shared his complete 2008 dodger gold parallel team set, and i think i need to start making more progress in this regard - i mean just look how chunky the gold borders are on the 2007 topps dodger team card

my gold rush is on!