h-town card show, part 2

i'm here to wrap up my visit last month to planet houston and the hotel card show i attended. yesterday's post covered my pick-ups from the first few dealers i worked with, and now here is the rest!

the next dealer i found had a quarter box filled with topps inserts and topps on demand releases. i took 37 cards from him, and he charged me 8 bucks.

here's a lot of 2022 topps 582 montgomery cards from 2020-21 set 1 and 2022 set 2

plus six more from 2022 set 3

and here is a pair of red sox from 2021 topps brooklyn collection

i knew that i already had the ichiro card because of the duke snider mural in the background - i had added the card to my dodger stadium mini-collection as soon as i first saw the card online. i didn't realize, however, that i also already had the trea turner card.

i did find some other dodgers that i did need here, too, including this 2022 topps a&g x freddie freeman mini

i had more luck with dodgers at the next stop. this was a guy in a braves hat who said his boxes were 50% off the marked prices. i made away with 48 cards for a total of 20 bucks. highlights included a 2021 topps update dj peters vintage stock parallel

a 2020 topps heritage 50th anniversary buyback of wes parker's 1971 topps card

a pair of color parallels of clayton kershaw from 2021 topps big league

and 2022 panini donruss optic

a pair of jackie robinson short prints

from 2021 topps gypsy queen and 2010 topps national chicle, respectively, and a pair of autographs from a couple of 2019 topps products

of dennis santana. santana most recently pitched for the yankees, and i will admit that i was a bit sad to see the dodgers get to him during the first two games of their series in new york. after the second game, in which santana was pulled and replaced by a position player, it seemed pretty clear his time was up and the next day the yankees dfa'd him. fortunately, like mitch white in yesterday's post, santana was picked up by a nl central team - in his case, the brewers.

i added five more dodger cards from another seller for 10 bucks, and i was happy with that price. i figured that he would be asking for that much for this card alone - 2024 topps shohei ohtani/mookie betts checklist

i think topps is playing fast and loose with what a hug is. maybe their copy editor has some issues.

the other four cards were inserts and parallels from stadium club chrome and topps chrome releases

at least half of which are unnecessary, but i remain the fool that buys them (on the secondary market).

next up i stopped at a dealer who had pretty much only texas team items and dug through a short stack (is there any other kind?) of jose altuve cards for a trading partner who collects the astro 2nd baseman. i found four cards for 2 bucks, and i am keeping one from 2022 panini donruss optic

since it's a double play turn!

then i stopped at another table and dug through a couple of rows of a monster box that was ambiguously priced. i was on my way out so i didn't look too seriously but, did pick out two autographed cards which totaled 10 bucks, one of which was this 1997 bowman karim garcia auto

he gave them both to me for five which was nice. i guess there is also a "blue ink" version of the garcia card, but i will count my collection complete with this one.

i made one more stop, figuring that i should see if i could pick up some 1955 bowman. there was an older couple with some vintage stacks, including cards from the tv set. i picked out a few and offered ten bucks. the toploaders that the cards were in had prices on them, and ten bucks was a pretty good discount. the guy looked at the cards and countered with the full marked price.  i then reduced my ask to two cards which had a total marked price of six bucks and asked if he would take five. he looked at them and told me "six dollars". it was then that i realized he was hard of hearing. i held up five fingers and he said ok and so i was able to cross off st. paul native fred baczewsi and gil coan

from the want list as i work towards completing the set. i'm making some decent strides in that regard but still have a ways to go.

big thanks to houston for hosting a show that coincided with one of my visits. i have plans to be there again, but don't see any shows scheduled during that time which is too bad for me because i really did have a good time.

last gasps

here we are in the middle of june, heading officially in to summer as of today, and the baseball season is in full swing. this year feels a bit different to me thanks to the vast reduction in the number of card releases that have occurred so far - even when you count the 2022 products that were pushed in to this calendar year.

with panini losing their mlbpa license and fanatics streamlining the topps umbrella of products, i figured now would be a good time to share some of the "last gasps" we've seen from panini and 2022 products in general.

i purchased a big lot of panini stuff sometime last year due to the fact that there were some dodgers shown in the listing images, and i wasn't disappointed. these cards are from 2022 panini absolute hobby:

mookie betts icons insert

sandy koufax icons red spectrum parallel insert

andre jackson rookie force relic

dennis santan tools of the trade relic/patch auto

kudos, i guess, to panini for showing santana as a dodger even though he was a texas ranger for the last part of the 2021 season and all of 2022. he's currently a met.

of those players, only sandy koufax stands a chance to be in panini product at this point, but he hasn't shown up yet (2023 panini donruss is, i think, the only 2023 product to be released so far).

here are some from the retail version of 2022 absolute:

roy campanella

cody bellinger

and betts

betts shows up again in my collection with this 2022 panini chronicles xr card

this 2022 panini diamond kings aficionado card

and this 2022 panini donruss unleashed pink fireworks insert parallel card

i think panini is running out of animals to use on the unleashed cards.

moving on to 2022 panini donruss optic, here's a walker buehler lights out insert

and now back to 2022 panini chronicles for this freddie freeman spectra holo parallel

more holo parallel craziness with a 2022 panini donruss holo pink kenley jansen card

and a 2022 panini select holo parallel of julio urias

here's a trea turner 'extreme team' insert from 2022 panini absolute

and a regular old base card of sandy koufax from 2022 panini diamond kings

one of my favorite things about 2022 cards was seeing albert pujols in more releases as a dodger, including 2022 panini absolute - in base

and insert form

along with 2022 panini prizm

koufax and pujols may continue to show up in panini product, as their only options are retired players and prospects beginning in 2023. 

these new releases will look a lot like 2022 panini prizm draft picks, from which this peter heubeck card comes

this is a burgundy cracked ice prizm card, numbered to 23

can't wait to see more peter heubeck cards in future panini releases!

2023 has also seen the release of some 2022 products, so here is a look at some other sorts of "last gasps". i picked up a few dodgers from 2022 bowman platinum

just in case this was my only opportunity to see joey gallo as a dodger. bowman platinum may have come out in december of 2022 now that i think about it, but i didn't pick up these cards until 2023

i also picked up some 2022 topps finest dodgers

and i know these were released in 2023.

in fact, it wasn't until april of this year that we saw 2022 topps stadium club chrome hit the market, and so far i've added a few of the dodgers to my collection:

mookie betts

walker buehler

roy campanella

will smith

and a joey gallo xfractor

i am usually more interested in the new photos used in the chrome set, but i did pick up vladimir guerrero's card

which uses the same photo as the regular old stadium club set.

so by now we've seen the last gasps from panini in terms of current player sets, but we are still waiting on at least one 2022 release - that would be topps chrome platinum anniversary. and i think that 2019 upper deck chasing amy is still "tbd" as far as its release date. someday, maybe.

so many dodgers on cards

by the end of this post, i will be caught up with trade packages that have been sent my way by kerry, he of cards on cards. i've posted some cards over the last year from some of these mailings, but i had a few remaining in my scanned folder so here we are.

back in november 2020, i received this 2020 topps update keibert ruiz insert

among other cards. it was an exciting card to have as the 1989 design has grown on me in recent years, and ruiz was the dodgers' top prospect. today the card means as much to me as the 1984 donruss sid fernandez rated rookie card. happy to have it in my dodger collection, but beyond that - meh.

more cards from kerry came in march of 2021, including this shiny card from 2020 topps chrome update

i like cards that focus on jersey numbers. there have been a few, such as the entire 2001 topps tribute set, plus various insert sets like this one. 

a month later, in april of 2021, still more cards arrived. i am guessing that maybe i didn't show any cards from this package before now, because i had quite a few scanned - such as...

a 2017 honus bonus chase utley card

sort of the opposite of those 2009 topps legends of the game inserts i showed earlier in the week.

how about a 2019 panini prizm dennis santana rookie auto red, white, and blue prizm

nice!

plus a 2020 topps turkey red insert of jackie robinson

i know kerry was trying to complete this insert set, and i had sent him a couple of cards for his set build.

and then there was this 1994 topps jose offerman

nothing really special about this card other than you don't see a lot of 1994 topps on the blogs. the player name text is reminiscent of 1970 topps and doesn't seem to fit too well with the other design elements. at any rate, this card goes in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

the last couple of cards i will show from this package come from the 1979 tcma the 1950's set.  here we have joe pignatano and gil hodges

along with someone named carmen mauro

i mean no disrespect, i mean mauro was a major league ballplayer for goodness sake, but i had not heard of him before. it turns out that he was born right here in st. paul, and the dodgers were the first of three teams he played for in 1953. he appeared in only eight games for the dodgers, so we should count ourselves fortunate that this card exists.

fast forward to may of 2021, and kerry sent almost a full team set of 2021 topps opening day dodger cards

along with a couple of 2021 topps needs

i like to see dodger world series cards!

also included was this 2021 panini donruss walker buehler name variation

i prefer "ferris".

one more card from that package, a 2021 topps heritage will smith boyhood photos of the stars

nice ymca representation. our local y didn't sponsor baseball or any other sport, although i played a lot of basketball there after school and on weekends.

last but certainly not least, i received some cards from kerry's annual spring cleaning event. these arrived in september of 2021. i had put in for twins as well as dodgers, and would up keeping a couple of cards featuring the minnesota club.

1994 pinnacle dave winfield

kirby puckett's presence on the card puts it in my lurker collection.

2011 topps update michael cuddyer

is a perfect fit for my tatooine collection

2018 topps chrome zack granite

goes in the dodger stadium collection, even though the scan doesn't show the background too clearly.

i picked a few cards from the dodger side of the box, including this 1983 donruss card of mark belanger

just like '94 topps, i don't think we've seen too much belanger on the blogs.

here's a 2011 topps triple threads pee wee reese card

and a 2021 topps stadium club mookie betts virtual reality insert

watching mookie in the 2020 postseason was a treat. such a great defensive player.

not the best segue to this 2021 topps allen & ginter max muncy relic card

but muncy's card does provide a good transition to this batch of cards also from 2021 topps allen & ginter 

in addition to sending me a complete dodger team set of the regular a&g cards (of which that lasorda is a short print), kerry also included those eight silver parallel cards. shiny!

2021 was a great year for dodger cards thanks to their 2020 postseason success. it made the back of allen & ginter cards all the more appropriate

the world's champions, indeed!

thanks kerry!