A Chilly December Afternoon PWE Round-Up

 

Good things in small envelopes from @nightowlcardz.bsky.social and more. 

 

It's that stupid season where everyone is trying to sell you something, all the time. I can't seem to manage to get away from the onslaught of emails right now. 25% off this, BOGO that... you know the deal. Fortunately, I have a few envelopes of cards to recap that cost me nothing beyond my ability to (hopefully) be a good blind trading partner once in awhile.

The first batch of cards came from Dodgers fan gcrl (check out cards as i see them when you get a chance), where every day it must feel like Christmas.

I think I've seen this photo of So Taguchi holding up his new jersey at a press conference used on a bunch of cards, which shows how much of an enigma he must have been when he arrived on the scene. While the Ichiro signing a season earlier was certainly noteworthy, I feel like player signings from NPB get a lot more attention these days.

Here's Stan Musial (in refractor form!) from that AI set a couple of years ago. I wonder how long Topps will keep doing these Chrome tributes to sets from the '50s. Well, I suppose there are only so many years in that decade to choose from.

Shelby Miller makes an appearance here in a flashy "red hot foil" second-year parallel card. Luke Weaver's emergence as the Yankees closer down the stretch reminded me a bit of another former top prospect hurler in Miller, who is still kicking around the league, spending last season in Detroit's bullpen. Well, I suppose there are worse places you could be in life.

The bulk of the envelope was comprised of an array of Topps Heritage cards (inserts and one short print) from various years. Giancarlo "Don't Call Me Mike" Stanton's floating head anchors this bunch.

Next up is an all-Cardinals edition PWE from the famous Night Owl. I'll link to his blog, though I'm sure you already have it bookmarked. (If not, what exactly are you doing here?!)

These days, the Topps flagship hobby-exclusive gold parallels usually look better than the serial numbered "gold" parallels you can find in most every configuration. It makes me wish these would just become the regular gold parallels by default, because they (the numbered ones) just look terrible now.

I also like the royal blue parallels quite a bit more than, say, the hard to find purple ones. (Don't get me started on aqua.)

This is my first stamped buyback from the 1975 set... or at least my first one specifically from 2024 Topps Heritage. I'm guessing Night Owl had an extra one of these or something similar, since he's the 1975 guy and all. I know they've done stamped buybacks from this set before, but in what form and product I can't even recall anymore. Sometimes it feels like Topps is the drunk guy who won't stop telling you the same rambling story over and over again.

Here we have a mini 2024 Topps Heritage Kyle Gibson card, along with a shiny foil parallel of Jordan Walker for scale. Seeing Walker's position as "3B OF" on this year's flagship cards makes me ponder if the Cards will ever consider moving him back to third if a Nolan Arenado trade comes to pass. Considering that they've invested a couple of years in teaching him how to play the outfield, I'm guessing they won't, especially considering how baseball organizations do not like to admit to making mistakes. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. (If it sounds like I'm being harsh on Walker, I'm not trying to be. I'm still optimistic about him as a player wherever he ends up.)

I believe this version of Sonny Gray's 1989 tribute insert is from one of those monster box configurations. It has the familiar cracked ice-style pattern on it.

Speaking of patterns, well, guess what? Topps came up with a new refractor pattern! I believe they're calling this ray wave. I actually like these better than the prism (aka "fishfractor") look, but we really probably don't need so many different kinds of these things. All of the different colors are more than enough as it is.

Last up is an all-CFL envelope from buckstorecards. I've received quite a few cards from up north there this year, though it remains to be seen when that might resume again with the Canada Post strike happening now. Unfortunately, I had recently sent out a few PWE's back his way that are probably sitting in an endless pit of undelivered mail for the foreseeable future. Hopefully there's a good place where this stuff is being stored instead of being, I don't know, set ablaze or something.

Of course, all of these CFL cards are of Ducks players like Dakota Prukop. The Austin native is best known for being the starting QB for just part of a season before Justin Herbert took over, but I did get to see him play in person.

Bralon Addison was a speedy received with Oregon for four years, although he was lost for the entirety of their season that saw them land in the national title game. (Let's hope for a better result this season.)

Boseko Lokombo goes all the way back to the Chip Kelly days at Oregon, so it's nice to see he's still kicking around the pros.

A couple of wrappers were included with the envelope, which was a nice surprise because I use these to decorate binders when they feature players I collect. This one features Vernon Adams Jr., who seems to have become something of a star in Canada lately.

A big thanks to everyone who has sent stuff to me lately! If you're interested in an envelope like this, just let me know what you collect and maybe we can work out an exchange.