I've been teasing the big box Johnny's Trading Spot sent for a couple of posts now, but now it's time to get everything out of the way. There is so much here that it will still take me a couple of weeks to get it all into my collection -- or into the dupes pile where half of it will go.
Here are the two stacks of mostly needs after all the dupes had been filtered. The Dodgers and a few random baseball cards are on the left, the Bills are on the right. As I've mentioned before, I don't really collect Bills cards anymore, save for the ones when I was covering the team (junk wax era, basically) and earlier stuff from '70s and '60s. I've even stopped with the current Bills cards, there are just too much and pro football cards' obsession with shiny is just not doing it for me.
So who knows what I'll do with that stack on the right. But let's focus on WHAT I NEED.
Non-Dodgers stuff first. These are all the 2023 Allen & Ginter cards I needed to fill the non-SP portion of the set. This now leaves me to chase down SPs, which I doubt I'll ever do (see my progress on the 2022 A&G SPs). But it's nice to have the pre-301s done.
John sent a 1986 Topps Traded box with a partially filled Traded set inside. The box looked like it was in a damp basement for 35 years so that's gone but all the cards are in great shape! Well into this chase now, so the ones I needed are on the right and the ones I didn't on the left.
I just got the Will Clark card in the mail yesterday and Bonds will be arriving in a TCDB trade (along with a couple others). So after that's all arrived, I'll be down to Bo Jackson and maybe 1 or two others.
OK, now the Dodgers. Johnny is often my introduction to whatever modern set has been out for a couple of months but I haven't had a chance to snag any Dodgers because life's got to be done. A few of these qualify and then there are stragglers from 10 years ago, like the Ted Lilly card.
I'll quickly go through some notables:
Jason Heyward gold foily. You can send all the Jason Heyward Dodgers cards to me that you want.
Cody Bellinger, 2022 Topps Holiday. This was the final card I needed to finish that team set. But it didn't dawn on me at first and it sat in the dupes stack for days before the light bulb went on.
Johnny sent a bunch of Adrian Beltre Dodgers cards, I think in response to my Beltre Hall of Fame post? Sadly I had ALL OF THEM except this one. And that makes this one super-special.
Joey Gallo, 2022 Stadium Club Chrome. It's the rare Joey Gallo Dodger card! I like the sun reflecting on his sunglasses.
Clayton Kershaw, 2023 Holiday ornament. I still don't have the guts to put these on the tree, that's the wife's territory but I think she's at the point now where she wouldn't mind. We're getting to the Whatever stage of our life.
A Mookie Betts black gold. I am a known sucker for flashy Mookie Betts cards.
Chris Hatcher 2017 throwback stock card. Remember when these were parallels you could find in any Target blaster instead of low-numbered, good-luck-finding-them treasure hunt cards? I shouldn't be this thrilled with a Chris Hatcher card.
Eric Young, listed as a Cub, shown as a Dodger. To repeat myself, this card could have avoided me for the next 30 years and I'd never know.
My first book card. I've never seen one of these in person. It's not Allen & Ginter so I'm not handling this with gloves, but let's see the inside.
MATERIALS!
Not the most colorful thing, but nice to have.
Johnny was ridding himself of his Yasiel Puig cards so I got a whole bunch. Most of them I didn't need. But here are a few combined with a bunch of Keibert Ruiz needed cards that were also in the box.
There you are. I guess I have to hope Betts or Kershaw gets in trouble with the law before Johnny sends a bunch of those guys to me.
But the most cards of one particular player that I received in this box dwarfs all that.
A mess of Gavin Lux cards, including several online-exclusives that I never chase. I had around 90 Lux cards but this has vaulted him into the top 100 players on my TCDB list. He's 68th now! Hoping he has a big surprise season.
Here are some 2023 Holiday cards, again I've done absolutely nothing with this set. I think it's time for Topps to retire this set, but it'll probably go for 15 more years beyond its freshness date. These are still a lot better than the 2016-18 Holiday sets.
Another first look with 2023 Pro Debut. At least I think they're all 2023 Pro Debut, I don't know why some don't have the PD logo on the picture.
A few more other welcome Dodgers that I couldn't find a theme for.
With as many Dodgers cards I have I suppose it's a requirement that I have one of these:
Yup, this was in the box, too. I do have a Dodgers license frame on my car, but it's so old you can't read much of it anymore. I'll see if this works, not sure if a $5 version will survive though, maybe it's best hanging on a wall.
So that's the end of me yammering about this package now. But just because I'm not talking about it anymore doesn't mean I don't appreciate it and definitely doesn't mean I won't be dealing with it for a long, long, long time.
(P.S.: These boxes also make me question why I still collect Bowman or Donruss).
Comments
Victory boasted a lower price point per pack and no inserts upon its inaugural release in 1999. It also featured white borders and no foil. Back to basics, if you will.
The second release was actually available in a factory set. In short, nobody bought Victory’s first factory set. They gathered cobwebs on many card shop shelves. Upper Deck also plagiarized themselves by aping 1994’s “same image twice” design technique.
For their next release in 2001, Victory released a larger set with the same formula of white borders and no foil. This time, however, the game plan changed. There was no factory set and packs were very limited. Upper Deck also resorted to their familiar tactic of a sideways name plate as a design element.
Victory’s final set in 2002 went out with a whimper instead of a bang. Again there was no factory set and packs were even more limited. The packs might as well have been radioactive as no collector would even touch them. The design itself was very Topps-like with heavy white borders and a dearth of color.
But the story doesn’t end there. Finding a complete 2002 Victory set today is next to impossible. I have been on the lookout for this set on Ebay for over a decade and have only seen it listed once. Not surprisingly, the set was snatched up immediately with a Buy It Now.
So there you have it. A truncated version of Upper Deck’s Victory. A fleeting oddball baseball card brand like no other.