My team supply of 2023 Archives came in a couple of weeks ago. It's always a relief to knock out those team wants for a product you don't want to buy anymore.
I'm sure you've seen every one of these by now, so I put them in a group picture so I won't drag things out.
Until getting the full set, I had just the Outman, Muncy and Miller. Muncy has shown up like four times at my house already. You can always tell what is either extra-printed or who collectors have no interest in.
This year's Archives gives me the face scrunchies like it always has. This year it's the 1965s where there is too much space above the player in the photo. It doesn't happen often enough where I think "there's got to be a weird legal reason for this"/"Topps is playing games so we think there's a weird legal reason for this," but it comes up enough to take me out of enjoying the '65 design.
But my issue with this set has been established, let's move on to how they're completely ignoring Chris Taylor and Miguel Rojas in 2023 sets! They're players on the Dodgers, guys! You know who isn't? Michael Busch. Because prospects get traded. All the time. This isn't Bowman. I don't need this card anymore. I could use one of Chris Taylor though. Who is still with the team.
But I do appreciate the Amed Rosario card. I love it when established players make a brief appearance on the Dodgers and it should always be recognized.
Mostly I wanted to get my hands on this set because of the Kershaw card (oh, thank goodness the Nike logo is slipping in on all the '56 shots). It's his first appearance on the 1956 design in a major set and that's an opportunity to update the Through the Years segment on the blog.
This is where I see how many past Topps designs have featured Kershaw. My last update came at this time last year.
Even as fast as Topps churns out the retro design tributes a year is still not enough time to do a full update with a whole bunch of new designs added. I have just two new Kershaw sets since last year.
1956 and 1988 are the latest arrivals.
And instead of showing an image of each example like I've done before, because there's no time and you've seen it before, here's a list of what designs I have for Kershaw and what's left:
PAST TOPPS DESIGNS IN THE QUEUE
1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
DESIGNS STILL NEEDED
1955, 1979, 1981, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Archives came through with the '56 design in 2023 but it's let me down in the past, most notably putting him in the 1980 design two years apart, as well as using designs in which he's already appeared in with Heritage.
But Archives is my best bet for the project as it's super-random while Heritage plods through year-by-year.
Heritage provided a great '74 Kershaw this year, which is much better than the '74 Archives example I have for him. This year Kershaw will appear in Heritage on the '75 design (I'm assuming). My '75 card of him is a mini insert, so I'm looking forward to a full-size '75 Kershaw.
But Heritage isn't going to fill a hole until it gets to '79, so I'm hoping Archives returns to '79 at some point or there's a '79-themed insert in flagship someday. Topps eased back on the retro-love slightly this past year so not sure if I'll have as many examples to add in future years. (Kershaw appears on a lot of '90s Finest retro inserts, but I'm sticking with flagship)*
I would really like a 2007 Topps Kershaw, as he just missed the cut, appearing on Bowman during those years.
So that's the latest update. It could be a couple two or three years before the next one.
(* - this assumes that Kershaw doesn't retire soon, which is very possible).
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