A Thursday PWE Round-Up

Cards from @marcbrubaker and more! 

 

As the weekend approaches, let's check out some baseball cards sent to me this year before things get chaotic again.

First up is a batch of things from Jeremy of Topps Cards That Never Were. I've sent Jeremy a number of Rays and Tigers cards in the past, and it was cool to see some cards from the team I collect headed in my direction.

This retro parallel of the Cardinals current closer is numbered to just 99. I wish the print run on these wasn't so small, as they are vastly superior to your garden variety base card.

Jeremy included some customs (see that blog name!) in the envelope as well. Given the state of the Cardinals these days, I'm not sure what the future holds for Mike Schildt. A lot of fans are starting to feel like it's time to clean house again, from the coaching levels to the front office. 

Craig Anderson logged 4 seasons in the majors, but only got two official Topps cards. One of these was shared with a bunch of other rookie floating heads. None of these were Cardinals cards.

Astros fan Marc Brubaker passed along another envelope full of Cardinals. This is also a numbered parallel from the 2020 flagship Topps set, but I prefer the retro stock cards. I think this is my first parallel of whatever this is supposed to be, though.

Donruss goofed around with their past card designs in this 2002 "Originals" set. They didn't quite nail all of the design elements, but it's at least a bit more fun than what Panini has done with their own tributes to the '80s Donruss past.

The Matt Morris card is actually a "sample", as seen here with the stamp on the back. Samples and promo cards have nearly gone extinct with the increased dependency on the internet to disseminate information on new or forthcoming releases. Now we just get sell sheets and mock-ups to look at on our phones and computers.

Speaking of mock-ups, Topps apparently canceled their sticker set this year. Here's a Carlos Martinez card from last year's set.

In 2018, Topps was still putting out the smaller Panini-style album stickers, like this Dexter Fowler example.

Next up, we have a trio of Big Mac cards from 2020. This is from the Chrome Update set that no one actually saw at Target unless you were a big cheater.

This is another Target exclusive. I kind of like that they brought back the "Target Red" parallels as well as the "Walmart Blue" parallels (see Jack Flaherty at the top of the post), even if they're a lot more difficult to find these days.

This McGwire is another in a long line of cheesy Stadium Club inserts. Is the Power Zone supposed to be inside the vaguely Earth-shaped glowing orb? Or does that represent an eyeball? Is the true Power Zone in your eyes?

Lastly from Marc is a pair of well-loved minor leaguers from 1989.

The third envelope for today is actually a pair of envelopes, stuffed full of 2020 Allen & Ginter cards from Elliptical Man. I did such a good job in not collecting this set that people continue to find cards from it that I need. Imagine that! I recently went to the Oregon Zoo, but sadly did not see any leopards.

All of these minis are headed to my meager set build, except for the black bordered Gibby. That one is a nice addition to the Cardinals collection.

Big-sized cards here. (Also known as regular-sized.) Here we have four baseball guys, a pig and a guy whose last name looks like cannabis.

This lot is all ballplayers. If you asked me on most days if Thurman Munson was in the Hall of Fame, I would have wrongly answered "yes" without thinking about it. That should be enough to get him in, don't you think?