An update of sorts (except for that player)

 

I have my 2021 Topps Update Dodgers to show, long after people have moved on to Archives or whatever else is being released now (I just know it's not Big League, which apparently will be released in 2028? Push it back a few more times).

That's OK, I'm done with the "stay up on the new releases" rat race, let alone buying new boxes. If I'm buying current stuff, it's probably just Dodgers and here's another example.

These are all from BigShep's Cards. Tim has recently gotten into selling cards full-time and good for him. I know him from his work on the About The Cards podcast and I've traded with him a time or two. It's nice to get your cards from someone you know and trust. He even threw in the two National Baseball Card Day cards above as extras! Cool.

Like many have said already, the Update set has some issues this year (but not as many as last year) because of the cut-off date for printing, which was in early June. That makes the "Update" name fairly dubious. Of the guys above, only four of them are still with the Dodgers. Update can be forgiven for keeping Kelly and Uceta in a Dodgers uniform as those were recent offseason transactions. But guys like Peters and Raley left the Dodgers months ago.

Still, it's tough to be mad when one of the cards in Update is this:

It's my first Dodgers Albert Pujols card! Even after all these years, it's nice to get the first card of a superstar in the new uniform of your chosen team in Topps' main product, over one of its offshoots and definitely over some Topps Now creation.

So grabbing those was relatively cheap. But Shep had several more inserts and parallels and such and offered those separately to those who wanted them. I paid to get those, because I may think I'm done with all that modern nonsense but I'm still a sucker.

 

Here are some foil parallels with a shoddy scan but I am not apologizing because screw you, foil cards.

It took me three tries to get THIS. It's impossible to produce an image of foil cards when you don't have a proper scanner connection and you have to photograph them when, for months, five out of the seven days it's overcast and the other days it's raining. Then try to get an image without your phone reflecting in the foil. I am so done with foil cards.

But, sure I'll purchase them! 

The three gold ones are some hobby-exclusive gold foil cards (wee). You eagle-eyed Dodgers checklist chroniclers will note that Corey Knebel showed up here but not in the first scan of all the Dodgers Update base cards. That's because there was a misplacement in the order and Tim is sending the Knebel separate. No problem.

But that's not what the post title is referencing when it says "(except for that player)." More later.

 

Hey, look, stuff in focus! This is the prerequisite diecut (also my 200th Snider card!).

 

Some players on Topps' chosen past-set-design tribute for the year, the 1986 look, both regular and chrome flavor. Unrelated, want list updating for inserts is officially impossible.

 

I'd say Topps gets a pass for the influx of reused old designs since it's the company's 70th anniversary and all, but THEY DO THIS EVERY YEAR. But, yeah, I'll take them.

 

Another reused design from the early '90s Black Gold era. But Betts looks great on every design. I don't mind this one at all.

 

I also landed an autograph of reliever Victor Gonzalez, who seems to be making the autograph rounds this year. I was hoping he would get me to 200 unique Dodgers autographs but then I realized I received an other Gonzalez auto earlier this year.

There were two other Dodgers insert cards that Shep offered up but I decided against them and he understand why.

 

They were of that Bauer dude who has shown up in a shocking number of cards this year. I am not against collecting cards of players with shady histories, there are plenty of them in my collection, but consciously throwing money at cards of him, especially when they are not part of the main set, seems a bit gross to me and I couldn't do it.

 

My hope is that he isn't part of the Dodgers very soon and I won't run into this issue again. Because, sure, I'll add his cards if they're sent to me, but I will not specifically buy them.

 

Screw his cards and screw foil cards and maybe Topps can make a decent Update set in 2022 before they leave us?