Before we get into it, there's less than 24 hours left to sign up and make your picks for my annual Bowl Pick 'Em Contest. Picks are locked in at the start of each game.
Back in August, I received a small envelope of cards from Night Owl which was chiefly comprised of Dodgers cards. This is, of course, both the blessing and the curse of being a team collector. You end up with a lot of cards of the players that play for your favorite team, and you end up with heaps of dupes. Next thing you know, you find yourself in the midst of listing more than 8000 dupes on your "For Trade" list on TCDB (well, maybe that's just me.) Fortunately, Night Owl found an outlet for a few of his unwanted extras because of this Cardinals collector's bad habit of trying to put together old sets without actually opening packs.
I did find a couple of Redbirds in the package, including this charmingly off-center Chuck Taylor (not the inspiration for the Converse shoes?) and a nice red framed Diamond Kings Nolan Arenado. The Cardinals always look good in red.
The rest of the envelope was dedicated to Bowman Heritage cards from the '00s. The 2004 set is one of the few where I've actually picked up a handful of packs to open, so I actually have a decent amount of it. Someday I might feel brave enough again to buy loose packs on eBay, but now is still not the time for that.
I'm also partial to the 2005 set, which is based on the 1951 design. There's something nice about the simple block letters on the black background. I wonder if it felt modern at the time.
Cesar Izturis shows up again here and gets an action shot. Half of these guys are actually former Cardinals.
The first Bowman Heritage set, from 2001, is one of the most boring. You're stuck with modern black and white head shots which largely fail to look like the original 1948 set. It wasn't until the final two Bowman Heritage sets from the '00s where the level of boring approached this again. I have opened plenty of packs from 2006 and 2007, but there's virtually no chance of me opening a 2001 pack as it's the Pujols and Ichiro year.
I'd like to have seen some shoes inspired by this Chuck Taylor.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever felt comfortable buying a pack on ebay.
ReplyDeleteLove this post--so many Dodgers! Love 1970 Topps too!
ReplyDeleteThe Bowman (and Topps) Heritage sets got me back into baseball card collecting in the mid-'00s. Love that '55 design.
ReplyDeleteI've bought packs on eBay a couple times. As long as you're not paying much (and don't have access to card shows or an LCS with old packs) it's not a bad way to go. Pulled a Greg Maddux Donruss RC recently out of an eBay purchased pack