everyone wishes for silver and gold

hard to tell, but this 2019 panini leather & lumber walker buehler card

is the base version with silver foil lettering.  this clayton kershaw card,

is the embossed parallel with gold foil lettering.

both cards came to me from night owl. this continues a nearly 12-year trading regimen wherein i receive some dodger hand-me-down goodness.

there were other cards in the pwe, of course.  here's a 2020 topps silver pack clayton kershaw card

and a couple more gold cards to continue with the theme

that's a 1997 fleer ultra pedro astacio gold medallion edition card. for some reason, in 1997, fleer decided to put a different photo on the gold medallion cards making them more of a variation than a parallel.  speaking of parallels...

that's a 2017 topps update justin turner gold parallel, featuring yadier molina's back.  not everything in the envelope was silver or gold, but the remaining cards were more than welcome.  here's a couple of 2019 bowman prospects - keibert ruiz and dj peters

ruiz is a catcher and made it to triple-a last season. he's only 21. peters, whose initials are actually d.s., spent more time in oklahoma city last year than ruiz. both are on the 40-man roster but are blocked to some degree from the bigs.

last but certainly not least is this 2019 topps mlb sticker collection sandy koufax sticker

there's a national on the back, but nobody needs to see that.

thanks greg!

crackin' max

it had been several years since i had participated in one of topher's charity group breaks at crackin' wax, but i felt the urge to roll the dice again and try my luck.  i started out with a topps heritage break that netted me quite a few of the dodger short prints in this year's set.  i followed that up with a stadium club break, and was the recipient of a fantastic on-card autograph of max muncy:

the fun didn't end there, as the funky muncy was back with another auto for me in the 2019 panini leather & lumber break:

i had opened a few packs of retail l&l previously, but this was hobby and so had all the crazy inserts.  case in point, this roy campanella die-cut lumberjacks card

which reminds me a bit of a car air freshener. still awesome, though.

there was even more muncy to be had in the 2019 panini donruss optic break i joined, as evidenced by this pink velocity parallel:

most recently i joined a 2019 topps chrome break that didn't bring any muncy cards home, but did result in a dennis santana autographed card:

i even decided to try a higher end break with 2019 panini immaculate (steve garvey has some cards in that set) and came away with a caleb ferguson dual relic/auto card

for my entry.  good stuff.

if you haven't taken a gander at topher's breaks, it is worth a look.  thanks topher!