My first sportlots order of the year has been sitting on my rolltop desk waiting for me to brag about it. It's not bragging material, really. There were a lot of upgrades that I don't need to show, but I sure did enjoy getting that 1977 Topps Joel Youngblood to replace the creased one in the set binder that I didn't even know was creased until a rare day of sunshine came through the card room (who knows how many creased cards are hiding in the Northeastern darkness of my home). Some stuff has been put away already and others have been sitting in a stack waiting until the one last pokey sportlots seller finally snapped out his stupor and shipped the last card (this always happens). I've determined what my 10 favorite arrivals are -- but there are more than 10 cards. Per usual, these are interesting mostly to me and could very well bore you to tears. 10. Gavin Lux, 2020 Topps Chrome The last card needed for the team set. Can you...
With the way that Topps Heritage has dropped a lot of the traditions that made it so fun to collect, I kind of assumed/implied that every tribute used in the past was out the window. But that's not entirely the case. The subsets from the chosen year still exist, the All-Star logos do, too. The design is the same -- um, sort of. And, I realized that Heritage is still matching card numbers, linking players who play on the respective team now with one who played on it then. I don't know if it's happening as often as when I first did this comparison 12 or 13 years ago, probably not. But it's nice to know something is still right with this brand that's been the biggest disappointment of the 2026 card year for me so far. I went through the modest amount of 2026 Heritage I have and found a handful of matches. I'll start with the obvious ones. Each of the 2026 Heritage card shares its number with the 1977 Topps card. The italicizing of NL and removing the peri...