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.

A Monday PWE Roundup

Good things, small packages, etc. 

I've got quite a backlog of plain white envelopes of cards to show off here, so I thought I'd knock a few out each Monday for awhile, until I either completely forget I was planning on doing this or until the envelopes stop coming. (Don't stop the envelopes from coming!)

First up is my prize from The Big (!) Fun (!) Game (!) over at Johnny's Trading Spot (extra exclamations added by me.) I tend to have a hard time keeping up in real time with all of the games and prizes going on over there, and elsewhere as it turns out, but I was able to focus enough on this particular Friday to claim a prize.

It was a stolen prize, in fact -- a nice little stack of Allen & Ginter minis. While I am still holding out secret hope that this set is cancelled this year, there's always a special place in my collection for minis, even though I'll never have them all. And the set is probably not going to get cancelled, considering how Topp$ is raking in the $$$$ right now with no baseball going on.

Batting second is an envelope from Matt at Diamond Jesters. Matt is a big Red Sox fan and you should definitely check out his blog if you have any extra Boston cards... or even if you don't!

He sent a couple of really nice inserts of Cardinals faves and PC guys (Flaherty is still unofficial right now, but it's just a matter of time at this point.)

Fellow PNWer Cardboard Jones is just one of the latest to help me out in my Turkey Red 2020 quest.

I'm now down to just 11 cards needed for the Series 1 set, with this envelope knocking down the list by another 5 pegs.

Thanks to all of you reading and keeping the Postal Service in business.

Ginter Goodies from The Collective Mind

Want lists: reduced! 

Back in September, GCA from The Collective Mind set me a ton of Allen & Ginter extras to knock down some of my want lists a few notches. I am still working on putting together another stack of cards to send back for this one, but in the meantime I thought I'd show off some of the goods.

It was quite a sad shock to hear about the passing of Roy Halladay. It seems like there's been a lot of lives taken way too young when it comes to MLB lately. Halladay was one of my favorite players not connected to the Cardinals, and I still have vivid memories of his pitcher's duel with Chris Carpenter in the 2011 playoffs. And that's not to mention the day I heard about the no-hitter Doc had going in the playoffs the season before, which prompted me to pop into a sports bar out in the suburbs to see it through to the end.

The early days of the Allen & Ginter revival featured a lot of smiling posed shots like this.

Cap Anson, the original hipster.

I'm not sure I'd consider the Astrodome a field, exactly, but I do really like this insert set dedicated to defunct stadiums.

A tip o' the cap to Carlos Beltran, who is hanging it up after a long, tremendous career.

A tip o' the cap to Gandhi... okay, sometimes these things just don't transition well. Beltran was a fantastic player, but Gandhi was a little bit more important in the grand scheme of things.

The Pastime's Pastimes inserts were so jarring at the time because they used an all black background in a set that traditionally favors lots of white. I guess this was just the precursor to the interesting looking but wholly unnecessary Allen & Ginter X product.

Klosterman is a writer who lives in Portland now. Have you moved to Portland yet?

This tree looks like a giant mushroom.

Apparently someone tried to create a machine to play chess a la Deep Blue, only more than 200 years earlier. Of course, the whole thing was a scam, but the actual story that was passed down seems highly dubious as well.

Thanks again to GCA! You can check out my Ginter and other set want lists here.

So Many B's

Piles upon piles of cards from a fellow Allen & Ginter collector.

Braves fan Matt, who runs the blog Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits (hereafter referred to as BBBBB) reached out to me a couple of times this year to get ahold of some of my unwanted Ginter goods. The timing was a bit unfortunate as my Spring Cleaning deal (still some teams available! even though I guess it's fall) was well under way and I had already disposed of most of my non-baseball specific insert stuff. However, I had some Braves goodies to send back his way and just a few cards from other sets that he was collecting. It was a good trade. It was... maybe a bit lopsided. There's already a PWE on the way to BBBBB, and any Ginter extras that come across my desk will be thoroughly considered.

First of all, this is a large stack of cards, bigger than a Traded set! As much as it is one of my main goals to collect all things Ginter, I feel like you all probably don't need to see an Enny Romero or Adam Eaton base card from 2014. You'll just have to trust me on this one. Of course, the binders will be satisfied, no doubt.

Let's just dig right in to the good stuff. This is a shiny Bowman's Best card of Bo Hart, circa 2003. Bo Hart was a viral video before YouTube existed, and he left the game quicker than you can say "Gangnam Style". Still, the summer of "Three Nights in August" will always be alternatively known as "The Summer of Bo Hart".

Here's a wonderful trio of 2015 Ginter minis. Rookie Sam Tuivailala's name is pronounced something like this. He is flanked by black bordered Matt Carp and Yadi.

More Bowman's Best. Pujols looks young and mobile here. He's busting up all the record books these days, albeit in a much less mobile fashion.

I've determined that Chris Carpenter is a great player to collect on a budget (unless you want autographs, but that's another discussion.) Injuries and a relatively short career in terms of full seasons accumulated made this so, but he was a heroic member of two championship teams. He is missed.

Just a couple of days before receiving this, I actually plunked down a bunch of Listia credits on one of these. That card had a white jersey swatch, however, so this grey version is another nice addition. Of course, there's no way I'd ever trade this even if it looked identical to the one I already had. I'm weird like that.

I'm not gonna lie. I completely forgot about John Nelson. Nelson was a September callup in 2006 who appeared in more games (8) than he did in front of the plate (5), but he probably earned some World Series shares out of the experience. Good for him.

I think I've already made clear my stance on the buybacks from this year's Allen & Ginter set, but that doesn't mean I don't want them all if they have to do with the Redbirds. I just don't know how to catalog these really.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding who will be on the 25-man playoff roster, but after being MIA for most of the season there's virtually no chance Wainwright's name won't be on it. This will make the upcoming series with the Cubs/Pirates (probably Cubs) all the more exciting.

What's the Point?

Great news, guys! No more repacks.

Let me get this straight... this is a card from last year's Allen & Ginter set, stamped (and framed because it's a mini apparently) and reinserted into this year's product? Isn't this a little like your mom repurposing the leftovers into something "new" and "exciting" that's probably going to have casserole in the name somewhere to make it sound planned?

I guess they'll start phasing out repacks as a way to sell off old packs. May as well rip 'em, stamp 'em, and reinsert 'em.

I know there were worse atrocities committed here, like the stamping of the dummy ad cards and so forth, but this is still pretty eyeroll-worthy.

Still At It

The cards keep accumulating.

Night Owl Cards has been around almost as long as this place has, and has certainly been more prolific in all aspects of the blog game. (Is there such thing as a blog game?) Countless numbers of padded envelopes have been exchanged, and back in May yet another one of these transactions occurred. The Card Blogger Class of '08 is still alive and well!

A couple of good friends of mine quit their jobs recently and are traveling around the country, seeing all the sights. I'm terribly jealous. I'm not sure if they'll make it to McWay Falls or not (I'd never actually heard of it and I'm a west coaster) but rest assured that they've already accumulated some great stories and photos to prove it.

Someone on TV suggested that Mike Trout might not be Captain Awesome and that there may be someone who is... shock of all shocks... better than The Golden God of Baseball this year. Blasphemy?

I wish that I had acquired this card sooner. She seemed like a very remarkable woman.

This is one of those weird "baseball cards on a classic basketball card design" that doesn't make sense in anyone's brain.

Finally, it's not entirely surprising that Night Owl had a duplicate Kershaw parallel that he didn't need. His excess is my... I don't know... gain? All I know is that I can't complain about adding Wainwright #210 to my collection!

Trading With Steve H

No new Topps Heritage here. Nothing to see here, folks. Move it along...

Continuing on with the return packages from my Mini Group Break, here's a few cards that reader Steve H sent me. Steve snagged the Bay Area teams as well as the Astros, and was kind enough to send some nice Cardinals cards my way as well as some 2014 Ginter set needs.

I like these cards, but I still don't feel like they belong with the Allen & Ginter product line. I hate to say it, but I'm starting to think that this brand should have ended a long time ago. I have the most affection for the 2008 set and am vastly more interested in the first few years of its revival than any of the more recent offerings.

Topps dramatically scaled back the number of colors in their rainbow of parallels this year, but we'll always have 2014. Green, blue, red, purple, yellow, whatever that weird color that yellow turned into for Series 2... and that's not even considering the serial numbered stuff. They were headed down the path towards an actual vomit color scheme before pulling out of the tailspin and getting things somewhat back on track this year.

Mini Ozzie! But look how busy this design is! There's barely enough room to fit the actual player on it.

Offseason Cards from Off Hiatus

A big trade today doesn't stop the trade posts.

Another big batch of cards I needed came through the door recently, courtesy of Off Hiatus Baseball Cards. Tony may be a fan of a team that I really wish would go back to the American League where they belong, but he runs a great blog and is a great trader to boot. He sent over a bunch of Allen & Ginter cards from the most recent set that I'm woefully behind on collecting, as well as some key Cardinals needs.

I have to admit that the Jose Canseco finger story grossed me out so much that I had to stop reading about it. Disturbing. What an insane person.

Jason Motte has probably pitched his last game with the Cardinals, but he is one of the nicest guys in all of baseball. He wasn't content to just undergo the lengthy rehab from Tommy John surgery to focus on getting back in game shape. He made his foundation's Strike Out Cancer campaign his personal mission and pretty much dominated social networking in 2013 to spread awareness. Very cool guy. This is a player with an already remarkable baseball career, converting from catcher to pitcher in the minors to eventually become the closer on a World Series winning team.

The Man.

Trevor Rosenthal may have a little competition next season for the closer's role. Jordan Walden will be joining the bullpen as a piece of the Jason Heyward/Shelby Miller trade. Walden was an All-Star in 2011 while spending most of the season in the closer's role and has been a very solid guy in the bullpen throughout his career.

I can't wait to see Michael Wacha in a key role in the rotation in 2015. He's fun to watch when healthy.