"New to Me" Heritage and Turkey Red

NBC used to do some sort of promos for summer reruns that went something like "if it's new to you, it's not a rerun." Something like that, anyway. While their attitude might have been a little suspect (assuming that someone has not seen your show means it probably isn't very good) I think their selling point could easily apply to other things in life. Other things like... oh... I don't know... baseball cards?

You can probably see where I'm going with this. Cardboard Junkie's own dayf, who really needs no introduction, had some extra Topps vintage tribute cards (or is that tribute vintage?) and he found the right place to send them to. I have this rather insane idea of eventually putting together all Topps Heritage sets as well as the Turkey Red sets, and I got some extras from sets that came out before I was really aware and interested. Meanwhile, I have yet to complete a single set since I started this blog a year and a half ago.

I actually managed to pick up a healthy stack of 2006 Topps Heritage on the cheap at a card show this past fall, so I am in better shape with this set than the rest that I'm going to talk about here. There are some really nice looking cards in this set as some of them completely avoid the vintageification process and just concentrate on picture quality. One of the cards I received was a short-printed Pat Burrell card, which is highly appreciated.

Heading back to the start of the Heritage line, here's Izzy on the familiar 1952 design. My scanner decided to further accentuate the pinkness in Izzy's cheeks for some reason.

From a younger, fresh faced Jason Isringhausen to a cagey vet named Eric Davis. Eric the Red eventually became Eric the Redbird. For awhile in the La Russa era, it seemed like a lot of well-known '80s/'90s players made a stop in St. Louis before they headed off into the sunset. Ron Gant, Gary Gaetti, Dennis Eckersley, Will Clark, Larry Walker... all Cardinals near or at the end.

Moving onto 2002/1953, here's Larry Walker himself. With these cards, it looks like they started with player photos and sort of drew over them to make them look less photographic.

This design is far from my favorite design, although I'm not really certain why.

The backs look great, however. Without giving it too much thought, I might even be inclined to say that these are the best looking Topps card backs of all-time.

Did anyone know that Benito Santiago was still around in 2004? I certainly didn't. Santiago looks old enough to be a coach at this point.

I really think card companies should attempt to capture players in vintage uniforms on retro-style sets as often as possible. This Eric Chavez cards looks nice, even if the corresponding uniform may not have been used in the era that this design came from (1956?)

Now, it's onto Turkey Red. There was a nice, juicy stack of the 2005/2006 set (the numbering sequence that began with 2005 continued with the 2006 set and the design is exactly the same, so the lines are fairly blurry when it comes to which set is which) which included a handful of rookie logo rookie cards.

My only complaint with the 2007 set, which I am far closer to completing than anything else mentioned in this post, is that it was missing the colored parallels that were present in the first two retro sets. If there's ever a return to a full proper Turkey Red set (and I'm not saying there should be necessarily) then I hope that they bring back the red, black, white, etc. colored parallels.

Dayf was also kind enough to include a smattering of Cardinal goodies. I needed this Edmonds card for the player/team collection. In fact, I don't think I have any other 2004 Donruss Team Heroes cards now besides this one.

This is a Matt Morris Cracker Jack mini, which in true Cards on Cards fashion actually has a slightly larger than standard photo.

I would love to see a return of a Topps Archives or Fan Favorites type set in 2010. I think there's some sort of restriction on an all-retired player set now, though. I'm not sure if this carried over into Topps's new contract or not, but I would much rather buy something like this if it was released again than I would that Natinal Chiclets set.

Bazooka! Gadzooks! This card is more Cracker Jack than Bazooka, because it was definitely the surprise inside. I really like the newer Bazooka stuff and I do not have nearly enough bat cards to my liking, so this is great.

Thanks again to dayf. I hope to put another package to send again soon. But what do you get for the Junkie that has it all?