Radness is Coming; A PWE Round-Up for Monday

Look for a new contest sign-up next week! For now, let's check out some cards from plain white envelopes.

It's time to recap a few of the sneaky white envelopes that trickled in over the past few months. I actually have been getting a ton of these in the mail lately, but at least 95% of them are part of TCDB trades. I've made sure to set aside any others that come in so I can show off the cards here. (I'd love to show off all of the TCDB trades, but I can just barely stay on top of getting them logged in and sorted.)

Padrographs sent me one of my first looks at the 2024 Topps Archives set, which was released very late in the year. Topps caught a lot of flack, at least among the online circles I spend time in, for their terrible attempt at the 1970 design. The biggest issue was the player name font, which bears no resemblance to the original design. It's even more silly when you consider that it's essentially the same font used on the 1994 design (which looks fine!) and was featured as recently as 5 years previously when its turn came up in the Heritage set. It was obviously a choice, and people have opinions about that choice, but I've never really heard a definitive, satisfying answer. What I do know is that while they do try to replicate a lot of the design elements for the Heritage sets, Archives often ends up becoming a more cheaply made, fun house mirror version of the original cards they're attempting to emulate.

Nachos Grande is a big Barry Larking collector, and I recently pulled one of Larkin's shiny parallels from the 2024 Panini Prizm set and sent it his way just for fun. I wasn't expecting anything in return, so I was pleasantly surprised when he hooked me up with some of his Allen & Ginter mini extras. The two Luis Castillo cards (black border and Allen & Ginter back) join up with Tyler O'Neill's mini to head to my Ginter set binder.

These two Brendan Donovan minis (A&G back and black border) are headed to my Cardinals binder. Unlike O'Neill's card above, I didn't have a single copy of either of these.

The biggest of the three PWEs came from frequent flyer gcrl, who sent over a fat stack of Cardinals cards and set filling needs. Alec Burleson's second year Topps card is a sparkly purple parallel numbered to 799. Do people still say "second year card"? I'm guessing not, unless you're trying to scam influence someone on eBay or somewhere of the like.

Chrome Sapphire cards are a pricey thing, so I am always thrilled to snag one for my team collection. Most of the ones I do have seem to be of the reliever variety like Gallegos here, but I'll surely take any of them.

This one is a Halloween-ish holiday parallel of Cardinals speedster Victor Scott II. Any time someone insists on going by "II" as a suffix instead of Jr. makes me tempted to call them The Sequel. I know that Topps was thinking "orange and black" when they designed these parallels for the Topps Update set, but they really made it look weird instead of spooky or whatever.

Here's a couple more parallels (rainbow foil and royal blue) from last year's Topps sets. I believe royal blue has been phased out in favor of even more foil this year.

Speaking of foil, here's a parallel of Jordan Hicks' rookie card from the inaugural Topps Big League set from back in 2018. It's numbered to just 100. Hicks finally successfully converted from a reliever to a starting pitcher last year with the Giants after the Cardinals had attempted it a few years back.

The set needs came in various flavors. Here's a couple base cards from the 2004 Topps Heritage set plus an insert from the 2020 set.

Alec Mills is not exactly a household name, but he did notch a no-hitter in that 2020 quasi-season. The Carlton Fisk card is a big get, since I'm very close to finally finishing off the 2014 Allen & Ginter set. This is the last set I haven't completed aside from the first two (and the last two where I decided not to pursue them anymore.)

The last grouping of cards are all from the 2003 Topps Heritage set, one of my personal favorites. I love the logos, the multiple photos and the green card backs. Of course, I like the original 1954s that they represent, but they're not always so affordable.

Tourney Update and Other Nonsense

As we head into the Final Four in the big college basketball tournament, I thought I'd take another look at the contest leader board. While Speigel's "Bracket of Nomo" has the most total points, it is The Lost Collector who in the driver's seat for most total possible points right now. It will most certainly come down to the wire, as there are 7 others with a solid chance of walking away with the top prize, most of whom picked Louisville. I could run the scenarios for everyone, but that would take more effort than I'm willing to put forth for college basketball, especially with my team having been eliminated in the round of 16. Unfortunately, I can with all certainty announce that reader Danny, the defending champion of the Bowl Pick 'Em contest, has clinched last place. How the mighty have fallen!

Tonight's post features cards sent to me by blog favorite GCRL. Garvey Cey Russell Lopes is, as the name would suggest, a Dodgers-centric blog, but it's well-written enough that it doesn't even matter that there's a team I don't care about at its core. (How's that for mixed praise?) GCRL sent over some Cardinals that I needed and filled a few often overlooked set needs from nearly a decade ago.

This is normally the part of the post where I complain about my scanner cutting off images for no good reason, but this Bob Forsch card is actually just centered very poorly. Fortunately, it's a far more interesting than it looks O-Pee-Chee card, with the highly lovable jagged borders. Are OPC cards actually the hipsters of the baseball card world, always just a little askew and trying to be different? Also, were the Canadian presses not afforded a proper paper cutter? So many OPC cards seem to have been cut with kindergarten style safety scissors, especially ones from the 1978 set.

I tried to read an article on Grantland about the band Perry today (no, wait, that's The Band Perry... seriously, that's their name.) I just couldn't get over the name, though. I can read almost anything written about anything resembling modern music, even if it's about something mindbendingly awful like Buckcherry, but this article didn't hold my interest. And I just can't get over that band name. Anyway, the Player Perry fits into my Cardinals collection as I was never able to afford the 1991 Fleer Ultra update set back in the day.

Turning the page to the set needs, here's one of those funky Bowman Heritage TV cards that I like. Scott Elbert is still in the Dodgers system, apparently, which is more than you can say about most of the First Year cards in this set.

Wonderful, it's another Perry! Well, this is actually a short print from the 2003 Topps Heritage set. Jason Perry played all of 4 games in the majors with the Atlanta Braves, but that was 5 years ago and he's out of the game now.

Finally, here's a peak at a base card from the plain old 2003 Topps set. I've cooled a little bit on this set as other flashier things have tugged at my interests lately. It seems to be a condition sensitive set during an era that has no real excuse for such things. It doesn't really make me feel great about a Topps base set released today would hold up under the varying temperatures of storage conditions for a decade. Basically, I just want Topps to stop making the same thin (cheap) card set with UV coating year after year. Picking up a card manufactured in the last 20 years will just never feel the same as one from the '70s, no matter how many years removed we are.

Trade You, Trade Me

Stats on the Back has a trade-a-thon going on right now. Name what you want, send him what he needs and reap the benefits of someone downsizing their collection. Hey, I'd do it, too, if I had any focus to speak of.

I mostly grabbed Turkey Red and Allen & Ginter, especially from older sets that are a lot harder to find/collect. A few of the cards were also needed for my Cardinals binder, including - surprisingly - this Jim Edmonds card from the 2006 set. Unfortunately, that means I still need a second cop for the set that I could theoretically put together someday.

St. Louis looks like a pretty smoggy place.

Mark Mulder's name is often invoked as a reminder of a blockbuster prospects-for-established stars trade gone wrong. I don't really refute this, but I still am in the (minority) camp of people that feel like it was hard to see Mulder's demise coming.

There were also a few Heritage cards to be had. Mo Vaughn really fills up a baseball card, doesn't he?

Finally, we go all the way back to the inaugural Allen & Ginter set, revival edition. Here's a German Emperor. You can tell he's an emperor because of the mustache.

Heritage Overload

The only thing I regret about coming around to the idea of collecting baseball cards again was that I did it so late in the game, and only because I missed out on some not very affordable sets that I still covet. Precisely, any Topps Heritage prior to 2007, the first two Allen & Ginter (retro) sets and the 2005-06 Turkey Red set will always be just out of reach to me. I rarely see anything from any of those sets in unopened form, and when I do it's usually too cost prohibitive for me to even entertain the idea. Fortunately, Robert from $30 a Week Habit backed a truckload of 2003 and 2004 Heritage cards up to my front door and unloaded a bunch of them on me. Here's just a few images highlighting a mammoth sized package.

Shin-Soo Choo is another case study in my ongoing You Can Make An All-Star Team Out Of Ex-Mariners project.

This is kind of a goofy card. Did anyone know that there was a Jake Mauer? Are his parents proud of him, or do they just say that they are?

When this card came out, Jamie Moyer was already 40.

As Big Papi prepares to possibly move on from Boston, it might seem strange that the former David Arias actually spent 6 seasons in another uniform other than a Red Sox one.

Jimmy! The only bittersweet thing about the Cards winning the World Series this year was that Edmonds almost was part of it all. Of course, who can say what a different player would add to the mix of a championship team that only made the postseason by a hair and was down to their last strike in the World Series multiple times.

They named a street in Seattle after this man. Put him in the Hall! I may not have much respect for the designated hitter "position", but he was the best there was at what he did.

This is a pretty cool "old logo" variation. Unfortunately, there were a lot of variations in the earlier Heritage sets.

Hey, it's the new White Sox manager. Is there some rule that states that every player that plays for more than a couple of franchises must be a Dodger at some point?

Sadly, one can only drool at the idea of a Wainwright/Carpenter/Haren/Garcia rotation, with insert-your-favorite-young-prospect taking the 5th turn.

Thanks again to Robert for the huge haul! If anyone out there knows about any deals on any pre-2007 Heritage cards, please let me know.

"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?

2003 Topps Heritage

Want List:

1 Alex Rodriguez

6 Brian Giles

7 Albert Pujols

47 Dustan Mohr

48 Alex Sanchez

55 Juan Cruz

67 Vinny Castilla

71 Josh Phelps

76 Jon Lieber

87 Rondell White

97 Casey Kotchman

99 Jason Marquis

100 Nomar Garciaparra

105 Derrek Lee

114 Andres Galarraga

161 Mark Bellhorn

180 Mark Mulder

183 Aaron Heilman

189 Todd Zeile

195 Alexis Rios

202 Brendan Harris

210 Ramon Nivar

214 Ryan Dempster

229 David Bell

235 Carlos Delgado

243 Corey Patterson

244 Paul Konerko

245 Danny Graves

266 Odalis Perez

267 Mike Sweeney

274 Matt Clement

284 Ruben Sierra

306 Roy Halladay

307 Kevin Mench

309 Carlos Guillen

318 Michael Restovich

319 Jose Hernandez

321 Daryle Ward

325 Adam Dunn

332 Chris Bootcheck

334 Antonio Alfonseca

343 Mike Lieberthal

356 Benito Santiago

(SP)

3 Ichiro

25 Chris Duncan

128 Adam LaRoche

132 Craig Brazell

141 Trey Hodges

170 Andy Marte

175 Bernie Castro

200 Vladimir Guerrero

239 Jeff Clark

250 Alex Rodriguez

366 Brian Jordan

367 Paul Byrd

368 Jason Lane

369 Jeff Bagwell

370 Bobby Higginson

371 Juan Uribe

372 Lee Stevens

373 Jimmy Haynes

374 Jose Valentin

375 Ken Griffey, Jr.

376 Barry Bonds

377 Gary Matthews, Jr.

379 Rick Helling

380 Junior Spivey

381 Francisco Rodriguez

383 Orlando Hudson

384 Ivan Rodriguez

387 Eric Cyr

388 Jason Kendall

389 Marlon Anderson

390 Billy Koch

391 Shelley Duncan

392 Jose Reyes

393 Fernando Tatis

394 Michael Cuddyer

395 Mark Prior

396 Dontrelle Willis

397 Jay Payton

398 Brandon Phillips

399 Dustin Moseley

401 John Mabry

403 J.T. Snow

404 Jeff Cirillo

405 Darin Erstad

406 Luis Gonzalez

407 Marcus Giles

408 Brian Daubach

409 Moises Alou

410 Raul Mondesi

411 Adrian Beltre

413 Jason Jennings

414 Edwin Almonte

415 Fred McGriff

416 Tim Raines, Jr.

419 Drew Henson

420 Kevin Appier

421 Chad Tracy

422 Adam Wainwright

423 Choo Freeman

424 Sandy Alomar, Jr.

425 Corey Koskie

426 Jeromy Burnitz

427 Jorge Posada

428 Jason Arnold

429 Brett Myers

430 Shawn Green

(1954 Logo Variations)

6 Brian Giles

10 Derek Jeter

11 Pat Burrell

27 Rodrigo Lopez

30 Sammy Sosa

100 Nomar Garciaparra

156 Randall Simon

190 Jim Thome

302 Magglio Ordonez

325 Adam Dunn

(Black Background Variations)

1 Alex Rodriguez

7 Albert Pujols

18 Lance Berkman

20 Todd Helton

80 Randy Johnson

139 Jake Mauer / Joe Mauer

150 Mike Piazza

260 Miguel Tejada

(Flashbacks)

F1 Willie Mays

F2 Yogi Berra

F3 Ted Kluszewski

F4 Stan Musial

F5 Hank Aaron

F6 Duke Snider

F7 Richie Ashburn

F8 Robin Roberts

(New Age Performers)

NA1 Mike Piazza

NA2 Ichiro

NA3 Derek Jeter

NA4 Alex Rodriguez

NA6 Jason Giambi

NA7 Vladimir Guerrero

NA8 Albert Pujols

NA9 Todd Helton

NA10 Nomar Garciaparra

NA11 Randy Johnson

NA12 Jim Thome

NA13 Barry Bonds

NA14 Miguel Tejada

(Then and Now)

TN1 Ted Kluszewski / Alex Rodriguez

TN2 Ted Kluszewski / Alex Rodriguez

TN3 Willie Mays / Barry Bonds

TN4 Don Mueller / Alfonso Soriano

TN5 Stan Musial / Garret Anderson

TN6 Minnie Minoso / Johnny Damon

TN7 Willie Mays / Barry Bonds

TN8 Duke Snider / Alex Rodriguez

TN9 Robin Roberts / Randy Johnson

TN10 Johnny Antonelli / Pedro Martinez

[updated 8/10/26]