tell me you made a mistake without telling me you made a mistake

a few weeks ago, i showed this card

in a post that was all about 2024 topps chrome update. it's a ketel marte all-star game insert, showing him turning two in the 2024 midsummer classic. not too long after that, i put in a claim on thorzul's annual "trade me anything" event for this card

which is marte's all-star game card from 2024 topps update.

as we all noticed when update first came out, these inserts were sneaky in that they still referenced the team each player plays for rather than the all-star game itself. i noted that rafael devers and mookie betts both had all-star game inserts that were only discernable as such by looking at the card backs. with chrome update, topps corrected that mistake, and the inserts are easy to spot even when the player featured isn't in the all-star uniform.

here is mookie's chrome all-star game card, along with the other dodgers

including shohei ohtani

i picked these up as part of a dodger chrome update lot to further my team collecting cause. also included in the lot was this freddie freeman all-etch insert

and a couple of rookie 1989 inserts of yoshinobu yamamoto and andy pages

anyway, back to thorzul's trade, it was anything but a mistake. even though he had no extra dodgers to offer up this year, i found some cards to acquire in addition to the marte double play turn including these four all-star inserts.

while i prefer that teams wear their own uniforms in the all-star game, i didn't mind these as they were throwbacks of a sort to the 1933 all-star game duds worn by the national league team. i also requested two of the 1989 inserts - ozzie albies

and mickey mantle

i'm always on the lookout for braves inserts to add to stacks for sluggo, and it's nice to see mantle back on topps designs after being monopolized by panini for the last few years.

i also asked thorzul for some cards left over from last year's trade me anything and wound up with dwight gooden's all aces insert

i am tempted to use this card for the william shea memorial but i think i will stick with the card that was produced in real time.

here's cody bellinger's gold parallel from last year's update

i was tempted to continue collecting bellinger cards after he left the dodgers, and i even contemplated doing the same for walker buehler starting in 2025, but i decided that since i didn't do that for matt kemp i wouldn't do it for belly or buehler. in fact, i think i would reinstate my orel hershiser or steve sax post-dodger pcs before i take up any other player - unless clayton kershaw were to go somewhere else.

i also asked for a couple more yankees - bernie williams' 1988 silver pack card

and don mattingly's mvp medallion thing

it seems that topps has gone away from these manufactured medallion and patch cards, but they sometimes turned out ok. award retrospectives make more sense to me than batting helmets, for example.

this was a great way to close out the year by receiving cards from thorzul. can't wait for the next installment of trade me anything!

1955 bowman complete through 120!

i am continuing to plug along with my 1955 bowman set build, and i have the next two complete sheets to show off.

here's sheet 14, cards 105 through 112:

eight cards and only four teams represented.

here are the backs:

we are in a bit of the doldrums here without any real big names, but we have some vern stephens who led the league in rbi multiple times, and some good names from the era such as solly hemus and gran(ny) hamner. hemus is yet another player who extolls the excellence of stan musial on the back of his card.

here's sheet 15, cards 113 through 120

another eight cards with just four teams accounted for.

here are the backs:

it's fun to have a guy named bowman in the bowman set, but most of these players are unknown to me. i did, however, learn that vic janowicz was the first heisman trophy winner to play major league baseball after seeing on his card back that he also played for the redskins. i also took some time to read up on sandelio (sandy) consuegra since bowman chose to use a different font for his name than they used on the other cards. his sabr biography is well written and full of information.

spoiler alert - i have also completed the next two sheets in the set, but i will save them for another post. stay tuned!

this would have made more sense during the olympics

i've acquired some gold, silver, and bronze of my own without dedicating years of my life to an intense training regimen. all it takes is several saved ebay searches. over the last several months, i've come across a couple of sellers who offered up several parallels from the 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams set, and i pounced on quite a few.

i added a couple of gold parallels to my master set build, including tim mccarver's 1964 subset card

and mookie wilson's 1986 subset card

these are numbered to 5, and i don't really have any plans around this particular parallel. for the bronze parallels, which are numbered to 50, my main goal was to have at least one from every team subset. my recent purchases got me quite close to that goal.

bob gibson 

is card #1 in the set, and it's always nice to start at the beginning. 

this jim kaat card

was the first bronze parallel i've found for a 1965 twin.

jim lonborg

was my first non-dodger pc, so adding his card made a lot of sense to me, and it is the only 1967 red sox bronze i have as well.

lou brock

is now one of four 1967 cardinal bronze parallels in the collection

and i didn't "need" denny mclain

as i already had a couple 1968 tigers in bronze form, but because it's a memorable moments card i pulled the trigger

this steve carlton

is my lone 1968 cardinals bronze

but boog powell

is one of the six i have for the 1969 orioles

here are two bert campaneris bronze parallels

and one vida blue

the blue is the lone 1975 a's bronze card in my collection

i added cecil cooper's card

just because he's cecil cooper

same can be said for george foster

but this one was a happy find as it represents the 1979 reds in the collection

manny trillo

is the only 1980 phillies bronze card i have, and i found it on sportlots!

i had no bronze parallels of the 1983 orioles, but came away from my most recent transaction with two - cal ripken jr

and john shelby

as a dodger fan, i couldn't leave shelby behind.

dwight gooden

lou whitaker

and dave winfield 

were the remainder of my non-dodger bronze additions, but they were opportunity acquisitions and not needed for the one from each team effort.

al downing's 1974 bronze parallel

is a duplicate so i now have a card to represent that team in the "set" build. i added some other dodger bronze cards, but they feed the dodger collection first.

ron cey

steve garvey

tommy john

steve yeager

bill russell

jerry reuss

ron cey

i added a second kirk gibson

to the collection to represent the 1988 dodgers in the set.

i am missing only bronze parallels from the 1987 and 1991 twins teams, so you can be sure i will be keeping an eye out for any of those that might pop up.

i did also add a few more dodger gold parallels while i was at it - al downing

ron cey

davey lopes

pedro guerrero

and ron cey

again. as i said up top, i don't have any illusions about picking up all or even most of these but i will bite from time to time.

as for the silver part of the post, the "base" autographs are sometimes referred to in that way, and i've added three since my last update. first, the late merv rettenmund

and the late luis tiant

and finally another steve garvey

that garvey goes into the dodger collection as i already had one in the pc.

there are still a bunch of parallels out there for sale, but for now i am content. until i see some bronze twinkies.