i can now confirm that dime boxes are alive and well

after the last card show i attended, i had somewhat given up on the idea of dime boxes. sure, i found some at that show, but it only one held the variety and value that has defined the attraction of dime boxes we all know and love. i decided to go to the monthly show this past weekend since i had the time to myself and i figured there were a couple of vintage things i was looking for that might make the trip worthwhile even if there weren't any dime box deals to be had. 

no need for a press conference 

but i wound up with 623 dime box cards and 630 cards total.

i shopped with four different dealers, three of whom had dime boxes. i arrived right when the doors opened and quickly noticed that there weren't quite as many dealers as there were in january, or perhaps the tables weren't quite as full. either way, i wasn't sure what i would find. a quick scan showed that the club vp who in the past has had some killer bargain boxes wasn't there. so, i headed to the guy who i knew would have some dime boxes first.

dealer 1 - 420 cards for $42

this is the guy who has his own dime boxes and then also sells a dime box for a friend. they aren't marked but he will always ask how many you took from his box and how many from his friend's box. i have to believe his friend is getting shorted by people who don't know the deal and just guess when asked. this time, i took 380 cards from the dealer and 40 from his friend - yes, i keep track.

anytime there is a penny sleeve with a big price on it in a dime box, i will buy that card. case in point, this 1994 leaf limited juan gonzalez mini that had a tag of $7.50

well, i should have turned the thing over because it's just a box cut and not a real card.

the oldest card i bought during my time at the show was this 1978 topps checklist

it's super clean and i really have a hard time leaving '78 topps that look like this in dime boxes.

1995 fleer is typically avoidable, but i will grab don mattingly and the reverse negative

every time. so far, it's been one time.

how about a freddie freeman rookie year insert for a dime?  sure, why not

even though topps didn't add the rc logo to the 2011 topps 60 card

this seller has already given up on jordan walker

so i got this 2021 topps pro debut card for a dime.

i only took one of the 2014 topps archives john smoltz short prints

from the box, but i did take both dusty bakers (not shown).

there were a bunch of topps heritage inserts, and these four from 2021 topps heritage high numbers

look great together

i hit a vein of 2022 topps foilboard numbered cards

as well as 2022 topps 3d cards

nolan arenad and manny machado were the biggest names in the bunch, but there were three rookie motion inserts, too

the four double play cards i pulled

speak to the variety - 2019 topps yellow parallels, 2020 topps opening day red foil parallel, 2020 topps uk, and 2021 topps chrome refractor. you get the idea.

i even grabbed a couple of base cards for the nob collection

2017 topps mookie betts and 2020 topps stadium club pete alonso. for some reason i don't run across red sox betts cards in dime boxes too often.

there were a bunch of 2023 panini donruss diamond kings subset cards and i grabbed a vladimir guerrero

but was shut out on the duke snider that is one of my most wanted cards at the moment. i did find some dodgers that i needed, however, including a 2016 topps gold label kenta maeda

to finish my class 1 team set.

here are a couple of 2017 bowman chrome top prospect mini cards of gavin lux and dustin may

a 2018 bowman's best cody bellinger

a handful of 2018 panini chronicles cards of bellinger and corey seager

2019 topps yellow parallel cards of chris taylor and joc pederson

a 2021 topps finest and 2022 topps finest flashbacks cody bellinger duo

and a hyper red and purple prizm parallel from 2021 panini draft picks of dodger prospect maddux bruns

i think that's enough from that guy. these were the best i had seen his dime boxes in quite a while.

dealer 2 - 120 cards for $12

next up is a guy i didn't see on my first lap - he may have set up late. whatever the deal, he had a couple of boxes of 2023 and 2024 product priced at a dime apiece. the 2024 box was originally a quarter box, but he had crossed that out. i am guessing that it was too hard to keep track, or maybe he just wanted the stuff gone. i can see why it was set at a quarter because it was filled with parallels and inserts and parallels of inserts.

2024 topps gold foil evan longoria

that was the only gold foil i found, but there were parallels of every other color it seemed. here are three different phillies team cards - yellow, royal blue, and rainbow foil

he had a number of the base holiday foil parallels, including a couple of dodgers

and a lot of aqua parallels. i looked for city connect padres player in the stack of aquas, but came up empty. the best i could do for color matching was jake burger's card

the marlins' city connect blue is not quite the same shade as the aqua borders.

seen any mega box foil parallels of the 1989 inserts? this guy had a bunch

it's a lot of nonsense, but i added a card to my vladdy collection regardless.

as for other dodgers, i found rainbow foil, royal blue, and aqua borders

plus the emmet sheehan mega box parallel, mookie betts superstar blueprint, and the chrome parallel of freddie freeman's stars of mlb card

the 2023 cards he had were mostly from topps chrome. i grabbed some refractors and inserts

and there were a handful of cards from last year's cosmic chrome, too. mostly mets for some reason. i took a kodai senga base and insert

finally, there were some cards from 2023 topps holiday in the box, too, and i picked up metallic snowflake parallels of kiké hernandez and will smith

no smith or clayton kershaw base cards though, so i am still short of the complete team set. there was another box that i could have gone through but it looked to be mostly bowman cards so i paid up and made another lap.

dealer 3 - 7 relics for $10

i will typically flip through a couple of cheap relic rows at shows, and this visit was no exception. i wound up with five relic cards and two auto cards, with two of them joining my dodger collection - 2021 topps duke snider 70th anniversary commemorative patch

and 2023 topps update will smith major league material relic

one of the other "relics" i picked up was a 2022 topps jarred kelenic batting helmet thing

that card is super thick and heavy. i was thinking that kelenic might turn things around in atlanta, but it looks like his woes are continuing at the plate.

this dealer had some quarter boxes of baseball that were being gone through by a couple of people. he offered me one that was not being reviewed, and it was a lot of bowman. he said he would sell the box outright for $125 which is fine, but when i declined he admitted that his basketball and football quarter boxes were better than the baseball ones. there could be a few cards from those sports that i wouldn't mind adding (i have a football card currently listed on my most wanted non-dodger cards at the moment) but i didn't want to take the time to see if they were in his boxes. i moved on.

dealer 4 - 83 cards for $8

this guy was a throwback to the sellers at the club shows from a few years ago. i am not sure if he sold back then, but he would have fit right in. just a mash up of stuff, with a couple of baseball dime boxes that featured cards from the 1970's through tto 2010 or so. base and inserts. here is a look at the variety i encountered here:

some fun inserts and parallels for sure. this was the guy who had the 2005 topps all-time fan favorites marvin miller card shown up top as well. that was one of my favorite finds all day.

i had never seen this card before

it's from 2005 upper deck all-star classics and is a "box scores" insert featuring johnny damon and the 2002 all-star game in milwaukee that ended in a tie in bud selig's town and on his watch. the most interesting thing here is not that barry bonds' name does not appear as he didn't allow cards to be made of him at that time (he is listed as "giants no. 25"), but rather the listing of "diamondbacks no. 26" at catcher. i tried to figure out who this was, but finally had to check baseball reference to find out that it was damian miller who i don't think ever received a card from upper deck. i wonder what the deal was there. anyway, there are a couple of these inserts for all-star games from the late 1970's and i want them.

the first dodger card i pulled was a 1997 fleer sports illustrated eric karros great shots mini poster

even though i was pretty sure i already had it. once i confirmed that this was indeed a dime box (the penny sleeve on this said 50 cents), i decided not to bother looking at my want lists before buying.

i did grab a half dozen dodger duplicates, but these were all needs:

1998 pacific omega red parallels of karros and raul mondesi

2003 leaf hideo nomo 60 insert

2004 donruss leather & lumber kazuhisa ishii base

2004 upper deck power up kevin brown

it's technically a yankee card, but i've had it on my want list for a long time. it's been close to being a "most wanted" card, but now there is no need.

similarly, here's a 2005 upper deck pros & prospects steve finley card

that is really an angels card but i will put it in my dodger collection. i did not have this card on my radar until i saw it in the box.

a couple more "real" dodger cards to close this out - 2005 donruss team heroes derek lowe

and 2006 topps finest rafael furcal

i also found three more new-to-me vladimir guerrero cards

and i also felt the need to rescue this 2003 fleer flair greats steve garvey card

even though it is not a need for my collection. i just like finding his cards in dime boxes i guess.

the dime boxes were so great, in fact, that i came away with a coveted bedard card

this guy was the topic of conversation at a couple of the tables i was at. not sure what all the fuss is about. ok, i know the hype is on connor bedard, not erik. i saw someone buy a box of 2023-24 ud series 2 hockey for $300 and then marvel at the low number of packs it contained. he was going to buy it no matter what i suppose. i'll have more about that hockey set tomorrow, by the way.

so, i was pretty happy with the 90 minutes i spent at the show. i didn't even see any of the vintage that i was sort of looking for but i didn't mind. next month the club show is the same day as another semi-annual show and then there is a massive convention center show another weekend with some pretty stellar autograph guests like vladdy, rickey, pete rose, and mike tyson. not sure if i will head out to any of those shows but it's nice to have options - especially when dime boxes abound!

heritage highlights, lowlights, and bad lights

it's been long enough since 2023 topps heritage was released that i am definitely late to the party with this post that expands on my first thoughts of the product. sorry in advance, but i am going to show some cards you've no doubt seen somewhere else already.

first up is the card that is currently the frontrunner for my favorite non-dodger card of the year

davey lopes congratulating hank aaron for breaking babe ruth's career home run record makes a great baseball card. i picked up two of these cards - one for the lurker collection and one for the memorials collection as this is by far the best card printed from that night showing the black armband that the dodgers wore in memory of teammate ken mcmullen's wife bobbie. i've updated my previous memorials post to include this card.

speaking of lopes, i was able to land his first solo card in "50th anniversary" buyback form

and the same goes for ron cey

i had thought i might see lopes' 1973 rookie card show up last year, but i never did. i had no such hopes for either of cey's multi-player rookie cards from 1972 and 1973, so was happy to finally add a heritage buyback card of the penguin to my collection. i don't expect to see any steve garvey buybacks this year as i am guessing all of those went to the ssp mvp year buyback autograph series.

garvey was featured, however, in the same baseball flashbacks insert set as the aaron above

and it's essentially a repeat of the topps now turn back the clock card topps issued last year.  the back does mention his status as a write-in starter

which i believe the topps now card omitted. i had figured i would have to wait for high numbers to see an all-star game related card and now i am wondering if another garvey card awaits me with that release.

i picked up a news flashback in the packs i purchased

and it reminded me that the early 1970's were kind of bleak. i don't remember too much but i do recall a lot of consternation around inflation and gas prices and shortages. sort of like 2022.

then and now remains my favorite heritage insert set, and i found a johnny bench/pete alonso card

that connects them as rbi leaders. i hope to see davey lopes on one of these cards in a few years...

new age performers is another mainstay of heritage

i found one of the better cards, i think, in julio rodriguez. i plan to go see the mariners when they come to the twin cities to face the twins just to see this guy play. i know i am not alone in the fact that rodriguez makes me want to be at the ballpark.

the 1974 stamps are an honest recreation of stamps that were issued back in, well, 1974. i believe those came with a booklet, but the ones in heritage do not. plus there aren't as many players featured per team - just four this year. here's the red sox stamps: 

and here are the mets:

and here are the dodgers:

i guess the red sox of 2023 aren't too appealing so they get two team legends while the mets and dodgers only get one. i was very happy with the dodgers' choice of garvey to join mookie betts, clayton kershaw, and walker buehler for sure!

the stamps also come in blue

and red 

variations that stem from walmart and target blasters (i think), respectively.

the dodger stamps were purchased on ebay while this one

came from target. minnesota twins from a minnesota brand.

those blasters also included red border parallels - here is one of the four i received

jose quintana is also a high number, so i think this parallel is also short printed.

speaking of which, there are three versions of steve garvey autographs in this year's heritage. the "real one" autograph

was/is the easiest one to find. there are also red in real ones and the aforementioned mvp buyback autographs. both of those are limited to 70-something copies. topps didn't ask me to sell them my wallet card, so i have it to compare to the newly printed cards for the real one autos

you can see that the new card is cropped differently, and for some reason topps went with a slash between positions instead of the dash. i suppose that is to accommodate the larger font for the name.

many folks have already presented comparisons between 2023 heritage cards and 1974 topps cards, but i will say that when i first saw the betts and trayce thompson cards, 

my immediate thought was of cey's card.  the betts card shares a number with the cey card, and here they are together

close, i guess, if you really want to see it. like cey, betts is featured this year as a boxtopper, except his is of the oversized variety

that boxtopper was the big hit for me in the team break i participated in.  here it is next to the regular mookie card

i think i would prefer the boxtoppers to be altogether different cards, like topps does with other products.

some non-dodger highlights for me included the aaron judge card that is number 1 in the set

a perfect homage to the hank aaron card that leads off the 1974 set! i wonder what topps would have done had judge not hit 62 last year to break roger maris' league record.

this vinnie pasquantino card

had me immediately picturing the 1974 john mayberry, which is also card #150 in the set, while cody bellinger's sad photoshopped card

dashed any hopes i had of a tribute being done to willie davis' card. i was surprised to see bellinger in the set as a cub, but there are still plenty of opportunity for guys who were shown with their old teams to be featured in new uniforms in high numbers like david peralta and maybe even "traded" cards for guys like luis arraez.

i was excited to see bobby witt's card

since jackie robinson day cards are usually a short print variation when the number 42 is visible. into my "42" collection it goes!

speaking of mini-collections, this justin turner card (which looks very weird by the way) goes in my memorials collection

that's because the umpire behind the plate is wearing a "bh" patch on his left sleeve for former umpire bill haller (tom haller's brother). the patch is just above the ftx patch that the umpires couldn't ditch quickly enough this year.

jon berti's card is giving off dick green vibes so it goes in my double play collection

but i have a second copy for the memorials collection, too. that's because the umpire in this photo is wearing the "tc" patch for former umpire terry cooney. finding umpire memorials is sometimes tough, but the photo style of 1974 topps helps quite a bit!

there were a bunch more cards that i really liked from my packs like this matthew boyd card

and this jordan montgomery card

and this cole waites card

in fact, i would have loved to see heritage this year go completely landscape. that certainly would have addressed the issue with angels cards like this mike trout

topps should have at least made all the angels cards horizontal and saved us from the empty top banner that looks so dumb.

it was nice to see topps leave kenley jansen a brave for his league leader card

even though they screwed up the banner colors for each league. they did the same for the all-star cards

i just don't know how topps functions sometimes, but then they give us this card of keston hiura

which almost matches george scott's 1974 card but is great on it's own for giving off a true 1974 vibe.

ben deluzio's card

had me thinking of glenn beckert (even though deluzio is still a cub), and jazz chisholm's card

does not look out of place at all with the 1974 design.

same for the multi-player rookie cards, although the one that i found was all marlins

and i am not familiar with any of them.

one thing that i didn't care for was the poor lighting in photos featured on some of the cards. matt wallner's card

is a real night photo (i've sent the card to night owl) that features the north shore of minnesota in the background (from the minnie and paul display in the target field outfield) but it looks bad on cardboard.

freddie freeman's card

features a photo that was taken in a studio with a lot of unnatural lighting and then slapped on a card with a fake background.

fake backgrounds abound, and when i saw tommy edman's card

the angularity of the colors in the background had me thinking of the dire straits "money for nothing" video. early computer rendering at its best.

a bunch of dodgers got the fake background treatment, including james outman

and first time all-star will smith

at least topps "moved" max muncy

to a different spot via his background.

the most unusual background i saw belongs to noah davis' card

davis got slapped in front of a tarp. i don't think i've seen the tarp on a card in a long time. in fact, thurman munson's 1975 topps card is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. are we supposed to believe, topps, that davis was posing for this photo somewhere between the covered mound and third base? dumb.

after giving him a nice action shot in 2022, topps put walker buehler back in his old spot - here are his 2021 heritage high number and 2023 heritage cards 

with the identical backgrounds.  dumb.

that's not the only thing i noticed about buehler's card this year. here is his hot box chrome refractor parallel

here's the back, along with the back of his short printed base card:

his refractor is number 348 but his base is a short printed 432. why topps, why?

we all know it doesn't matter because i'll be back looking for that bill russell buyback and maybe another garvey insert when high numbers comes out - assuming it does.