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.

Trading with Reader Jeff

Reader Jeff from Iowa completed a Heritage-for-Heritage (and Cubs) swap with me recently. Included in the trade was this Anibal Sanchez New Age Performers card from the 2007 Topps Heritage set. Sanchez was one of a number of notable players dealt today with the trade deadline approaching. Sanchez came tantalizingly close a couple of times last year to throwing his second career no-hitter, but he hasn't always been the most consistent pitcher in the league.

Hooray! Floating rookie heads from 2011! This one is a short print. In this year's Heritage set, the floating heads don't mean a thing as far as rarity goes.

These guys look ghostly for some reason.

Ah, Ichiro. My guess is that he's with the Yankees now because the Mariners learned that there was no chance of Ichiro signing a new contract with him. Otherwise, I don't think they would have let their biggest ballpark (and tourist) attraction get away even with his rapidly declining skills.

Here's one for the Cardinals binders.

Like Ichiro, Randy Johnson and Richie Sexson (to name a few), Olerud was another former Mariner that made a late career stop in the Bronx.

Finally, here's Roy Oswalt from that 2008 Topps rookie cup anniversary insert set. I like these, but it feels like I still need so many of them.

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.

Trading with Dustin from MI

Thanks to a recent flurry of trade activity, I continue to have plenty of cards to show off on this blog. Trade posts may not be the most exciting thing for others to read, but I have to consider how much I like to read about people's reactions to what I send them and remember why I do this in the first place. Reader Dustin from MI sent such a fat, card-for-card quality package that it almost seems a shame to boil it down to just 10 cards here. I have to show some restraint, however, or I'll never get around to posting anything else.

I'm not entirely sure why this card is in black & white, since I'm pretty sure color photography was readily available throughout the career timespan of Ozzie's career. It's a nice addition to my always lacking Ozzie Smith collection. This is from a Topps Stars set circa 2000.

I am completely baffled by the fact that Upper Deck issued an entirely different version of the 2006 base set (more than 1000 cards) in an extra glossy format and labelled it "Special F/X". Even weirder still was that this was apparently available in pack form and came with its own set of parallels, like this purpleish shiny Braden Looper card. With the way things have been going in Cardinals territory of late, I'm surprised that Looper hasn't been signed.

Ryan Ludwick has been about the biggest threat in the Cards lineup lately, but his presence still doesn't save the 2009 O-Pee-Chee set from being a comedic tragedy.

I have tons and tons of Cardinals oddball cards, augmented by my eBay purchase of a huge lot of late '80s mint condition oddball Cardinals stuff, so I'm always excited when I find something like this that I didn't have in my collection already.

The 2008 Timeline set introduced me to the fantastic 2004 Timeless Teams design and it makes me want to pursue buying some packs of the original stuff. I believe this is my first card from that set.

Dustin sent over a few non-Cardinals cards of current/former Cardinals that I like to collect including this 1997 Bowman Chris Carpenter. Does anyone have a Carp rookie that they feel like giving up?

Dustin hit my set wantlists pretty hard, and included a pretty healthy stack of 2003 Topps. This is my first Cardinals Chuck Finley card as far as I know.

Ahh! What happened to Brian Roberts' face?

About a third of the box was 2004 Topps Heritage cards, which is great. I don't see older Heritage packs for sale very often, so I'm really happy when people send me this stuff. The Fernando Vina card is something I hadn't seen before in a Heritage card. Most of the photos are doctored in these sets in some way, but they didn't bother to make Vina a member of his new Tigers team.

Thanks again to Dustin, who should be receiving a package in the mail any day now if he hasn't already.