New Address PWE Round-Up

 

Loads of Cardinals, football players, pink cards and mini cards (and pink mini cards?)

 

If you hadn't heard, I recently moved after being in the same spot for more than seventeen years. It was quite a chore! Thankfully, everything is done now and I had a number of envelopes with cards in them sent to the new place. Let's check out a few of them.

First up is a stack of Cardinals cards from gcrl / cards as i see them. I'm not sure how he ended up with so many pink parallels from the 2019 Topps Mini set, but I'm certainly glad they were sent my way!

As you may have noticed, all of these cards are numbered to just 25 copies. I don't believe the print run for the base cards from this online exclusive set was all that high to begin with, but this is still really cool.

Speaking of low print runs, I also found this Sapphire Chrome card inside the envelope. This is a set that I would never join a group break of, let alone buy a box. It's so expensive! That's why I enjoy picking up the odd common Sapphire card every great once in awhile. They're just parallels (or parallels of parallels?) but they at least look nicer than when they just slap a foil logo on the flagship factory set and call it good.

I think they dropped these Walgreen's exclusive yellow parallels after a time, which is too bad, because the pharmacy closest to me just started regularly stocking cards.

Next up was a cool batch of Redbirds from Marc Brubaker, another long time trading buddy. I haven't bought any of this year's Panini baseball products since they lost their MLBPA license, so it's always nice to pick up some of those Cardinals through trading channels.

Speaking of stuff that I'm not buying, it's the new Allen & Ginter set. I finally put my foot down and decided to end my run of trying to put together this set every year. It's not that I don't like the way these cards look. They just don't really look like Allen & Ginter cards anymore, so what drew me to this brand seems to have been totally lost. If you slapped the dreaded GQ logo on these, I'm not sure that most would really notice.

Here's a couple of really nice minis. Pujols has the A&G logo on the back, and Walker is, obviously, a black parallel. 

Speaking of sets I've been avoiding, well... here's another one. This is another "art" set where they take a photo of a player and add some effects to it to try to make it look hand drawn or something. Instead, it kind of looks like all of the photos are AI-generated. Has anyone played around with Bing's AI image generator to try to make fake baseball cards? I know what I'm doing tonight!

It's AI Arenado!

This last group of cards is from the football realm and comes from buckstorecards. I have come to really appreciate these Draft Pick sets that Panini churns out year after year because they feature players in their college uniforms. I think that tends to diminish their overall value, but it makes it really fun to collect for me, especially as I've always been a bit lukewarm on the NFL game. Here Christian Gonzalez is showing off the Ducks eggshell uniform that they break out a couple of times a season.

On this one, Gonzalez is wearing more of a classic green. I do like the all green look and wish we'd see it a little more.

These aren't Ducks uniforms, but they are (former) Ducks players! I always love getting CFL cards from across the border, since I tend to never know who is in them. Apparently Upper Deck also does an e-Pack line of CFL cards, which is something that I wish existed for baseball. (Well, maybe.)

If you have any spare Dodgers (gcrl), Astros (Bru), or whatever the heck buckstorecards collects (he has diverse interests!), definitely consider dropping them in the mail to these guys.

Two Dodgers Fans and a Rockies Fan Walk into a Bar

It's not a joke, it's a PWE round-up from @nightowlcards and more! 

 

It's time to look at the contents of a few more stamped small envelopes sent my way this spring. First up is a few cards from Rockies fan hiflew of Cards from the Quarry. There's been a near-weekly feature at Cards from the Quarry where a serial numbered card from each team is offered up for trade. I've claimed a few of these this year and was able to jettison some extra Rockies cards in the process.

Say what you will about Panini's Donruss sets, but they've definitely improved since the first offering back in 2014. This is one of the stat line parallels, which does have an interesting foil effect on it at least. The design is pretty rough, though, with the only really welcome element being the throwback baseball pattern on the sides.

The last card from hiflew is this Luke Weaver Prizm Draft card numbered to just 35. 

Next up is some cards from Dodgers fan Night Owl Cards, who has sent me a lot of cards over the years to put it lightly.

Night Owl keeps hitting my set wants, which is always appreciated. As a Cards fan, I'm bummed that Kris Bryant is a thing again. Sometimes that walk year will do that to a guy.

Luke Gregerson was a former Cardinals draft pick that was traded before he hit the majors, but finished his career in a Cardinals uniform. I try to forget his time in that uniform, honestly.

Dude.

Night Owl also found a couple of Cardinals cards that I needed. This one was chunky enough to warrant its own envelope. I haven't looked at the Series 2 checklist all that carefully yet, but I'm guessing there's another one or two of these manupatch cards that I need to track down.

Series 2 is also carrying on the 70 Years of Topps theme with star players (old and new) on designs of the past. We'll hopefully check out a few of those next week. It sometimes produces weird results, because I swear I've seen a card just like this before.

Last up is another 70 Years card, sent from Dodgers fan gcrl of cards as i see them. I think I end a lot of my posts with a Yadi card, but I think it's always a good way to go out.

Feel free to actually write my joke in the comments, if you're so inclined.

So Close You Can Taste It

Baseball is almost back! @daniel24303 with the Cardinals hookup. 

 

First off, here's a reminder about the big contest going on this month. I erroneously mentioned that the games would start on Thursday (because they always start on Thursday), but due to what I can only assume are health and safety reasons, Friday is the big day. You have a little extra time to get your bracket filled out.

Back in December, Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop sent over a really nice batch of Cardinals goods. Let's check out some of those cards.

Die cut cards are always appreciated. This 2004 Donruss Jim Edmonds card comes from the land of plentiful numbered inserts. I wish Topps would serial number their inserts, but they don't want a lot of people figuring out their print runs I'm sure. (They print a lot of cards, especially in 2021!)

A white Chrome refractor? How cool is that? The all-black base design of the 2007 set afforded Topps some room to play with their colored parallels.

Luke Weaver was on one end of a swap between my team and Daniel's team. I'm guessing if Weaver was in a D-Backs uniform here, he would have been less inclined to trade this.

Here's a really nice low numbered (18!) Matt Carpenter jersey piece from the 2017 Topps Triple Theads set. Most cards with larger memorabilia pieces tend to relegate the player to secondary status on the card, but I think the photo placement here works well.

My wallet really can't afford to get in on the '90s refractor game, so it's always nice when someone has a spare one to trade to me. I doubt a Scott Cooper card of any kind will set you back much, but some of these refractors can get really spendy.
 

I wonder what exactly happened to Sam Tuiavailala. He was a solid reliever for Mariners and put up good numbers for a couple of seasons after starting out with the Cardinals, but I haven't heard of him connected to baseball in any way since he was released out of the blue a year ago. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to play sports competitively in the current environment, but it still seems strange.

Spicy Breakin'

An assortment of Cardinals cards from @Nachos_Grande group breaks. 

 

I've mentioned it here before and on Twitter that longtime blog Nachos Grande has a really good break group going over on Facebook. If you ask me, groups are really the only worthwhile thing on the beleaguered social media platform these days, and are honestly the only reason why I put the stupid app back on my phone.

Well, that's enough about me and my social media issues. Let's look at some cards! These are all sorts of things from Nachos Grande breaks over the past summer that I had saved up and shipped to me a few months ago.

It seems like everything is a parallel these days, but back in the early to mid-'00s it seemed like more of the parallels were numbered. This 'Xtra Points' gold parallel from 2003 Playoff Prestige is numbered to 150.

Here's one of the inserts from the most recent Panini Diamond Kings set. This goes to show you that if you just strategically chop up Stan the Man's photos you can trick yourself into thinking you haven't seen the same image on a million different cards. I think that's what Panini was going for, anyway.

When I think of Pacific Private Stock, I usually think of those weird (and slightly ugly) T206 sized minis and not the actual base cards. It turns out that I needed a number of base cards, including this Fernando Tatis card with the facsimile autograph.

Before this year's surprisingly impressive (and also expensive) Stadium Club Chrome release were the inserts you could find in the standard Stadium Club product. They all look really nice. This is actually a refractor version numbered to 99.

From the 2018 Panini Diamond Kings comes this Luke Weaver sticker auto. This is also numbered to 99. Not bad!

This might be my favorite of the bunch, however. These are game used bases (base chunks?) I wonder how many Hall of Fame votes Jim Edmonds would get this year if he hadn't fallen off the ballot immediately.

Like Luke Weaver, this one is another ex-Cardinal autograph. Optic's surge in popularity in the basketball market hasn't really translated well to the baseball market, although you wouldn't necessarily know that just by looking at box prices.

The rarest card of all of these breaks, however, is likely this Yadier Molina Downtown insert from the 2020 Diamond Kings set. Apparently these are case hits, which is why you aren't likely to see them on card show tables. The design is a lot more... New Yorker?... than a few of their NBA counterparts that I've seen.

The Case Break Ship Came In

It's a #crackinwaxmailday as we look at my case break goodies from 2019 Topps Series 1. 

Crackin' Wax is easily my favorite case breaker site out there, even though I feel like I haven't been able to take advantage of their services nearly enough. (The Cardinals are a popular enough team that their slot is often gone when it's a PYT (pick yo' team) break.) They do a lot of things for charity and just generally seem like some good people. I did sign up for a year long prepayment program for some upcoming Topps and Bowman breaks, so this won't be the last you see from Crackin' Wax.

If I really want to enter this sweepstakes, I guess I need to find another one of these cards. I don't want to scratch off the code. Of course, I could probably use a code for a player who I don't make a collecting priority.

Man, gold parallels keep somehow getting more and more disappointing. Long gone are the days of the shiny metallic gold finish. In its place are some ovals or something.

This is another one of the gold parallels (numbered to 2019, of course.) Ponce de Leon's elbow got lopped off by my scanner, probably because it was angry that the card is actually slightly crooked. How does that happen these days?

Here's Harrison Bader's Rookie Cup card on the Topps Vintage Stock parallel. It's numbered to 99. As I always say, I wish all of these cards could be printed on so-called vintage stock like this.

In yet another one of those endless parallel scenarios, Jack Flaherty's Future Stars card appears on the same design as the gold -- only this is blue. Apparently it's for Father's Day. It wasn't released on Father's Day, however, so it just seems like a confusing name. (It's numbered to 50. Cool!) Flaherty was great last season and hopefully avoids any sort of a sophomore type slumpy thing.

The case break left me just one short of the 1984 tribute insert team set. I still need Miles Mikolas, if anyone has one to spare. A lot of Molina photos that are used show him in his catching gear, so it's nice to get a bit of a change with this one.

Another cool thing that Crackin' Wax does is include the cards hobby promo packs (aka "silver packs") that they earn by spending $$$ on hobby stuff. I think other breakers probably do this as well, but I still think it's nice. It's another shiny Ozzie for my collection.

Patrick Wisdom finally got his shot at the big leagues last season and played reasonably well, at least with the bat. Of course, with the glut of hitters who aren't known for their defensive skill at a particular position, he promptly got himself traded this offseason for utility guy Drew Robinson.

This was one of the biggest hits of the break, which of course makes it all the more disappointing that Wisdom is with the Rangers now. I don't really want to bust out the checklist now and whine that it wasn't Player X or Player Y, though. It's always awesome to get a low numbered autographed card on my favorite team. It's certainly not something that happens to me often, especially when dealing with the luck of the draw.

All the Series 2 Cardinals

It's a #CrackinWaxMailday with a case-load full of Cardinals from @CrackinWax to pore over. 

Occasionally it pays to think ahead. Since I've stopped buying the Topps flagship product in recent years, collecting the Cardinals stuff from these sets (still a priority) can become a bit of an afterthought. This is one of those rare times that I planned things out in advance, as I bought into a case break over at Crackin' Wax. I think I did pretty well for myself.

Of course, there are base cards. Many, many base cards. I believe I ended up with eleven total team sets. Fortunately, I should be able to dump a few of these on Listia, but if anyone here is interested in one, let me know. I do still need two cards from the (neglected) Series 1 team sets, plus a whole lot of inserts and special stuff.

This time around, there's only one player in the mix that's no longer with the team. We'll get to him in a moment. We also get a team card, some rookies and a rare Greg Garcia card. Seriously rare. This is his fifth season with the big league club and it's just his first Topps card. He also appeared in Bowman products in 2010.

Alex Mejia saw a bit of action late last year, but he's off the 40-man roster and back in the minors with the Cardinals organization. These are his rainbow foil and gold parallels.

It's an SP! I didn't know they were putting "legend" SPs into this set, so this was a nice surprise.

I still need a bunch of the "Topps Salute" cards from Series 1. In fact, I think this might be my first look at this design.

Carlos Martinez was well-represented, with his rainbow foil and vintage stock (numbered to 99!) parallels. The vintage stock card might be my favorite of the whole break. I wish the whole set could be like these. Only, you know, not so rare.

Paul DeJong should be back soon. Hopefully! This whole season feels like it's teetering on the brink of disaster.

Jack Flaherty has looked really good at times. The rotation appears to be pretty set for the future, at least, if the club doesn't end up making any significant moves.

Rainbow and gold Cafecito.

Here's the rainbow Matt Carpenter version.

Today's game seems to be steering back to homers! homers! HOMERS! This card just seems appropriate all of a sudden.

The tribute to the 1983 set continues with these All-Star inserts. I love new Ozzie cards!

Speaking of which, this is super awesome. I have one of these warm-ups (#1, of course) in my closet that I break out for special occasions.

This one had me stumped for a bit, because it's from the "silver pack" promotion. In Series 1, each of these had some fancy pattern on the card. Oh well, so much for continuity!

Great shot of Tommy Pham up against the Wrigley Field ivy. As much as I dislike the Cubs, every good outfield needs a photo like this on a card.

This is my first, er, negative photo parallel. I know these are hobby only, but I don't remember how rare they are.

This is another SP. This time, it's a photo variation.

Here's a Topps Salute card of Tommy Pham in his "Players Weekend" jersey. I feel like this was so hyped last season that it's probably coming back this season.

My collection is sagging under the weight of all of the different Pujols cards that I own, and Topps keeps finding ways to print them up in his old uniform.

I don't "PC" this guy, but I think he's up to #2 or #3 in total unique cards owned in my collection. Yikes.

Are these photos from the actual game they are commemorating? Of course they aren't.

The Pujols parade is over, and there's a new Sherriff in town. And that's the last time I ever make a Ryan Sherriff joke.

As mentioned earlier, Breyvic Valera is the lone Cardinal no longer with the organization that's in the base set. He was flipped to the Dodgers in a roster space crunch move right at the start of the season. Once again, these are the rainbow and gold versions, respectively.

At 15 seasons in the league, Yadi might just be a little tired of posing for dorky photos.

I also snagged Molina's gold parallel. I miss the old gold parallels, as I pretty much say every year now.

Apparently there was only one autograph pulled in the whole case (what?!), but I was lucky enough to snag two game used memorabilia cards. Here's DeJong in his former uniform number, which now belongs once again to Jose Oquendo.

And this is a black parallel (check the serial number!) of a Luke Weaver jersey card. Because everything needs parallels.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any 2018 Topps Cardinals stuff not pictured here. The want list will be updated shortly.