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.

Stars and Stripes

Set filler needs and patriotic birds from the illustrious @nightowlcardz.bsky.social blog. 

 

I suppose I could have saved this post for a certain holiday that's coming up in a few weeks, but I received this package of cards from Night Owl way back in February, so it probably has sat around long enough. Even though I wouldn't consider myself the biggest flag-waving person around, I've always liked the Independence Day-themed parallel cards, especially the ones that Panini puts out under the Donruss branding. Part of this, I believe, is that the cards usually have more of a heavier "throwback" feel to them, using a different (and likely more expensive) card stock similar to what Topps did with their retail (Target) exclusives from 2009 through 2011.

These two Cardinals Indpendence Day pickups are great, but would you believe that I also have a secret stash of these parallels from players on other teams? I don't usually go out of my way to look for these, but I love it when I pull them from a pack or happen upon one for dirt cheap.

Night Owl sent some red birds on other flavors of cardboard, too, like this interesting insert from the 2022 Topps Gallery set. Arenado's been hitting well of late, but he left today's game after getting hit by a pitch. Injuries always seem to happen to the Cardinals just as soon as someone's bat starts to catch fire -- just look at Willson Contreras, for example. Sheesh.

Mosaic is probably my least favorite Panini brand. I'm not a fan of the way their parallels look at all, and they already have all of the chromium bases covered with Prizm, Optic, Select, and probably some other fringe products that I'm forgetting.

I wish these stamps cards from 2023 Topps Heritage were a super-common, one-per pack type of insert, because it would be really fun to peel these off and stick them on things. Like mail! These count as postage, right?

Among the big names to make their debuts last season with St. Louis, it's Masyn Winn and not Jordan Walker who really feels like the most essential young player in the organization right now. In fact, he already feels like the most important player on the entire team right now. I'm still pretty confident that Walker will put it together at some point, although the Cardinals have been rather dreadful at developing players, particularly outfielders, for quite some time now.

There's a blast from the past. I don't know how I don't have all of these blue Walmart-exclusive parallels yet, but I am sure that I am missing plenty.

Considering that this card (and versions of it like this one) is three years old, I am sure I've mentioned what a weird thing it is that they turned this photo into a horizontal card. Did Flaherty spill some spaghetti on his pants or something?

2022 was such a fun season. I just wish it hadn't ended so abruptly.

We're now onto the set-filler portion of the package. Up first is a pair of high number SPs from the low number portion of the set. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Here's a big block of Allen & Ginter minis. I'm guessing most of these were kicked out of Night Owl's mini binder at some point, although the James McDonald may well have been a Dodgers dupe. Many of these are the slightly rarer A&G back version.

Up next is a pair of cards from the very underrated 2003 Bowman Heritage set. Actually, I feel like Bowman Heritage as a whole is underrated. And no, I'm not talking about the recent Bowman Heritage revival that started with using the modern late '80s/early '90s design templates. These two cards show off three of the base card designs used in the set.

The third 2003 Bowman Heritage card in the package also shows off the third base card design. I believe these were a nod to some old test issues for Bowman that were never officially released. Duke Snider's card is joined by a 2004 Topps Heritage card of Andy Ashby, a name I haven't heard in quite a long time.

Sunday Funday PWE Round-Up

Catching up with chunky cards from @sanjosefuji and more! 

 

I don't even want to get into how far behind I've fallen in card stuff here or what led to this situation. Let's just look at some cards! The first bunch came over from The Chronicles of Fuji. Fuji managed to cram a sweet stack of memorabilia cards and relics into a small envelope way back when, and I'm excited to finally show them off to you all.

Oooh, even Joey Heisman thinks these cards are pretty sweet!

Of course, Harrington only finished in 4th place in 2001, but he and his school managed to raise his profile enough that he went on to a decently sized (but not terribly successful) NFL career.

Here's a blast from the past -- it's Josh McRoberts, or McBob as he was affectionately known during his short time around here in Portland. This is one of those neat looking letter patches that I own so few of. It's even autographed! It's just a manufactured patch, of course, but it definitely resembles the lettering on the Blazers jerseys at the time during the Adidas days.

The Blazers hits just keep on coming. This signed sticker auto comes from decorated Spanish star Sergio Rodriguez, who spent the latter half of the '00s in the NBA before resurfacing stateside for a season about six years ago. He's still playing professionally these days.

Zach Collins is the NBA's only living and breathing vampire (that we know of.) He's currently a key member of the Spurs after starting his career with Portland.

I think we all know this guy, for better or for worse. There's kind of a strange cut-out for the jersey piece on this card to go along with the wood theme.

Ha is still apparently the only player from South Korea to play in the NBA, which is kind of a cool distinction as he otherwise didn't have much of an impact on the league. He tantalized with his size, but I don't know that the league had as much structure in place twenty years ago to develop raw talent that they do now.

I really liked Gary Trent Jr. while he was with the Blazers and it felt like his trade to Toronto was the beginning of the team's downward slide, even if we didn't know it at the time.

Next up, we have some goodies from long time PWE trader (and Dodger fan) gcrl. A couple of the online exclusive Topps Mini cards were on offer, including this insert from the 2017 set.

This one is even more special as it's numbered to just 25. Ponce de Leon has bounced around a few organizations after his last appears with St. Louis, but he hasn't resurfaced in the big leagues yet.

I also snagged some Allen & Ginter set filling needs from gcrl, including a couple of base cards and this Randy Johnson insert. Will we see a normal late summer release for this year's Allen & Ginter set? I haven't checked the calendars in a bit because my budget for cards has dropped off dramatically of late.

Here's a few more inserts from last year's Ginter set. I kind of want to burn the card at the top.

Lastly, I claimed a few random set fillers from The Angels, In Order back in the winter. (Yeah, it's been awhile!) Those Royals jerseys definitely scream early '00s to me.

The 2014 Topps Heritage New Age Performers design is one of my least favorites. It squishes the player photo over to the side unnecessarily. I get how they were trying to make this look like it should with with the 1965 Topps theme, but it doesn't work for me.

I also claimed this slightly smaller ("mini"...ish) parallel card of Mike Sweeney from the 2005 Bowman Heritage set. I've managed to add some Bowman Heritage cards to my meager set builds since I started trading on TCDB, but that area could still use plenty of work.

Thanks again to everyone who has sent me envelopes of all sizes!

Night Owl is All About the Shiny

Surprisingly shiny stuff from @nightowlcards includes a batch of Redbird parallels. 

 

When most of us think of Night Owl Cards and baseball cards, the '70s immediately jump to mind. (Specifically 1975 and minis.) Imagine my surprise, then, when a bunch of sparkly new Cardinals fell out of an envelope I received back from the Dodgers enthusiast back in February.

I've never been one to desire to "chase the rainbow" (we should really call this "Skittlesing") because I consider myself a team collector before a player collector. The conundrum is that a team collector like me still feels the need to hoard every version of every card of every player in that certain uniform.

These red ice (or whatever... actually, Cardboard Connection lists these as "red foilboard" for some reason) cards are serial numbered to just 199 copies. I'm not sure if I've ever pulled one personally.

Topps uses that "ice" effect on their base cards and a similar effect on their fancy Chrome Sapphire sets (see below), but the way they name these parallel designs is maddeningly inconsistent. Panini also does a version of this, and a version of the same pattern you see on X-Fractor cards like Jon Lester here (Panini calls these "building blocks" at times.) It makes me wonder if anyone has any original ideas anymore.

Acquiring a Chrome Sapphire card is a fairly rare achievement these days. I'm always appreciative when someone sends me one out of the blue. Otherwise, I seem to end up with a few of the cheapest ones whenever possible, similar to how I've treated Topps Now cards over the years. I really have a hard time bringing myself to spend more than one dollar on any single card.

I don't think I've seen this particular parallel pattern out of Topps before, but it looks like something Panini has used quite a bit on certain Chronicles and Revolution cards. (Go back to Pacific Revolution to see its origins, I think.) I'm not sure if this was pack pulled or one of those factory set parallels that must drive rainbow chasers closer to the brink of card madness.
 

Of course, we also have the familiar Stadium Club parallels to contend with. At least these are usually easy to identify, with mostly a foil color change here (red, in this case) or a chromium finish there. I'm glad we got one last card of Adam Wainwright as a batter, now that pitchers mostly don't bat anymore.

We're finally back to familiar Night Owl ground here with this four-pack of Allen & Ginter minis. My stack of unsorted A&G minis is getting disturbingly big at the moment, which means it's probably time to do some more of that dreaded organizing soon.

Thanks again to Night Owl and everyone else who has sent me some interesting parallels over the years.

Better Late Than Never

 

A big ol' case break of Allen & Ginter from @CrackinWax brings us the latest #CrackinWaxMailDay like it's summer in November. 

 

If it felt strange to be getting my first look at Allen & Ginter around the late November holiday season, last year's blog post confirmed it: this set is very late. With everything continuing to be delayed, it made me wonder if this was just a repeat of last year's late arrival, but an August release wasn't nearly as far off from the norm as this year's schedule. After doing a bit of waffling, I did finally get into a case break from Crackin' Wax for this year's version. Like last year, I think it's just alright. I don't love it, but it is distinctly Ginter.

The design seems like it was some concept art for the pack design that crept its way into the card border itself. It leaves less space than ever for the player photos.

An 'RC' logo is always going to look funny on vintage-inspired sets, but I do prefer the standard logo to times when they've tried to make it blend in with the design and color it all sepia-toned or gold or something.

The way the border just fades away into nothingness on the right is surely going to drive the people who freak out about card centering up the wall just a bit.

Tim McCarver made the short list of SP subjects, which is a nice switch from the usual group of HOFers (and McGwires) the Cardinals typically end up with.

Minis, as you'd suspect, look very similar. They're smaller! There's even less room for the photo. I do really miss the first few sets (2006 through 2008) that would use much smaller photos, because they made the minis look a lot nicer.

Black minis are also small and, you know, black. I actually think this is one of the best black mini designs (giant logo aside) as they tend to switch these up from year to year.

Here's another black mini featuring the new NL MVP. Congrats, Goldy!

As usual, there are some full-sized inserts featuring various baseball players. This set is a bit on the boring side. It would be nice if the front featured something about the season besides the year in huge letters.

There are "final year" Pujols cards in the set, but this one is a throwback to his initial Cardinals run. I sure do miss the old Majestic jerseys.

This one is for the pitchers, and Gibby makes an appearance again. They did a clever thing with the background on these, I guess.

I landed two "hits" in the break. This was easily my favorite. Topps can do their Ginter thing year after year, but the mini framed cards always look awesome. Plus, it's Noot! Nooooooooot!

Of course, I much preferred the framed mini relics to the full-sized things, but I'm guessing these are a lot cheaper to produce. I certainly can't complain about adding another special card of the MVP.

What does everyone think about this year's Ginter set? I should probably get some duck cards, huh.