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 Jumbo PWE Round-Up

Most rectangular things in rectangular paper envelopes from @sanjosefuji @dvdgao and @vossbrink on a World Series off-night. 

 

There was no baseball to watch tonight, but there's always plenty of cards to look at. Let's tear into a few more plain white envelopes that I received over the summer. First up is a photo mailer from Fuji. I owned a bunch of these jumbo-sized Donruss Action All-Stars cards (I believe that's what they're called?) back when I was a child, and let's just say that they weren't taken care of properly. At some point I guess I threw them all out.

Now that I'm a smart adult or whatever, I have a three-ringer binder with specially-sized plastic sheets to hold big Cardinals cards in. Isn't collecting fun?

I do like the postcard look of the 1983 set. The Donruss All-Stars set carried on for quite awhile, but eventually by 1988 they reduced the cards down to standard size and made things a bit less fun, aside from the one-per-pack stand-ups that were included.

The 1984 design is pretty basic, especially when compared to the flagship 1984 Donruss set.

Both of these cards show off Cards players in their baby blue road uniforms, which they have brought back (in a way) for Saturday games only in recent years.

Fuji also sneaked in a regular-sized Trail Blazers card. Clifford Robinson (RIP) appears on this Topps Gold parallel from the 1993-94 set. Nice!

Cardinals fan David sent along two envelopes stuffed with set needs, and also included this Matt Holliday card from a long lost high end Topps set from a decade ago. The card looks really nice (full bleed photos always work) and it makes me wonder when or why Topps Marquee was killed off.

The rest of the cards were all Heritage and Ginter set needs. I know you're probably not here for the boring old base cards, so I just scanned the inserts for your viewing pleasure. Christian Yelich probably wishes he could get in a time machine with Cody Bellinger and go back to 2019 when life was good. But then again, a lot of us have probably been thinking that these days.

In 2020, Heritage was one of the only things that was relatively easy for me to buy, so I feel like I did a decent job at collecting the set. The inserts, on the other hand, I didn't do so well with.

The photo seems to imply that Joe Frazier knocked out Muhammad Ali, but they actually went 15 rounds without anyone getting knocked out. Do they actually allow people to beat the hell out of each other for 15 rounds these days?

I only recently learned that Yoenis Cespedes has a younger half-brother in the Chicago White Sox system. Now I have passed that knowledge onto you.

I know it's very fashionable to complain about Joe Buck (I do find this amusing) during the playoffs, but Alex Rodriguez on the pre- and postgame shows is something else. And by something else, I mean not great.

Last up for tonight is a single card from Nick Vossbrink. He sent over another terrific custom card, this time of blog fave Ozzie Smith. It features his iconic backflip.

Stats are really all you need on the back of a baseball card... as long as it's full stats! Once again, I am envious of all of your custom designs.

PWE Time!

Cards from @dvdgao @BoRosny and @Thorzul on a Tuesday night. 

 

Another week is here, which means it's time for another PWE round-up. First up to bat is Cardinal fan David, who sent along a few of his Redbird extras as well as some set needs.

Griffin Roberts isn't on the 40-man roster and I haven't seen him in any 2020 sets, but it looks like he received an invite to Spring Training this year which means he's still in the organization.

Matt Adams, of course, isn't in the Cardinals organization anymore after coming up with the club and a brief reunion in 2018. It looks like he's a free agent currently.

David included three more cards from my long sidetracked attempt to collect the 2020 Heritage set. Why do I collect sets again? It was nice to pick up two inserts and a short print (Garrett), though!

Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! sent me eight 1987 Sportflics cards I needed. You may wonder why I would need any old Sportflics cards at this point, but I recently discovered that, like many sets of the junk wax era, there were lots of variations. The factory sets apparently had a 1986 copyright on the back, while the packs had 1987 copyrights (although a few cards from one of these varieties are missing their copyright line altogether.) I could also have this backwards, since I mainly only had '86 copyright versions in my collection and I don't know why anyone that I know would open and break up an old Sportflics factory set. This would mean that various internet sites are incorrect, but I don't really care anymore. I just want both versions.

I only scanned a few of these, mostly out of curiosity for how they would look when scanned. You can mostly see Ozzie Smith here along with a bit of Shawon Dunston.

You can scarcely see the Cardinals player at all on this one. As you might have expected, this is another one of those "Tri-Stars" cards featuring multiple players.

Lastly, I claimed a single card from Death Stare Cards as part of his annual Trade Me Anything feature. I always make it a point to participate but may have missed a year or two in the switchover from his old blog Thorzul Will Rule to its current incarnation. This was actually the first time that I can recall where there weren't any cards I was interested in, so I snagged this Yordan Alvarez just for fun. I guess it remains to be seen if I continue to casually follow the Astros as much as it remains to be seen if Yordan Alvarez is going to be a star player. Hopefully he can stay healthy?

If you have just a few cards you think I might like and want me to send something back to you of similar size, let me know. That's what snail mail was apparently made for. At least someone is buying stamps these days.

Problematic Heritage

The High Numbers are finally here on this #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax (who else?) 

 

If you've had a chance to check out 2020 Topps Heritage High Numbers, you've probably found or at least heard about the massive quality control issues. The scratches and off-centered cards won't really show up here in the scans, but the base cards in this set are by and large in pretty rough shape coming out of the packs, especially when compared to Heritage sets of the past. On top of this, the entire retail line was canceled after a lengthy delay that pushed the release out until the end of the year. This makes it significantly more difficult for someone with a budget like mine to put together the complete set. Heritage is usually pretty plentiful on the retail side, so it was disappointing to hear. (I should point out that a number of online checklists still list retail exclusives like megabox chrome cards, Bazooka inserts and scratch-off inserts that will never be found unless they enter the market through unscrupulous ways.)

That aside, I did pretty well on my half case break with Crackin' Wax.

Heritage High Numbers could also be called Bench Guys and Leftover Rookies. Brad Miller played a more significant role than expected with the Cardinals during the abbreviated 2020 season due to a hot bat to start and the expanded DH rule (is there a vaccine for the DH rule?)

Here you do see some of the centering issues. Nearly every player in this set is making this same pose or a slight variation on it.

 

KK opted for the over-the-shoulder look. Good for him. He was a fun pitcher to watch in what barely counted for a season, and I'm hoping for bigger things from him this year.

As always, I love the Clubhouse Collection design that's used for the game-used memorabilia. This time around they went with black borders and a background instead of the white that they used for the regular series.

The black is actually a bit washed out compared to the base cards, however. Still, they look nice, and I'm glad that I ended up with both jersey cards as they're pretty big names.

I also had the A's in the break as my randomly assigned team in the half case break. If you need any, I have tons of extras. I also ended up with two Chrome parallels of someone named Sheldon Neuse?

I also finally got ahold of some Topps UK by way of another CW break. The White Sox were unavailable for purchase and were randomly assigned to me, which added another card to my unintentionally growing Luis Robert rookie collection.

I did snag all of the Cardinals team set (sans Tommy Edman) along with this blue Yadi parallel, which is numbered to just 75. I have a feeling that the print run for this set was pretty small, but I'm not sure if there's a ton of demand to see the Topps base design yet again, only with a UK flag on it.

A Post-Election Day PWE Roundup

Counting those ballots with @dvdgao @BucsHere and more! 

 

Let's just say we're going on two days now of being on the edge of our seats. In the mean time, let's check out a few small envelopes that came in back in August, which both seems like yesterday and far away at the same time.

Fellow Cards fan David hit me back with an eclectic mix of cards (and some cool Cardinal stationary) after he snagged a spot in my last free group break here. I'd like to squeeze at least one more of those in before the end of the year, considering that we're still in a mostly "stuck at home" situation and certain card supplies have come down to slightly more reasonable prices of late. Melancon was another set need (i.e. non-Cardinals need.)

Every once in awhile a Bowman Draft card will surprise me, and you can count this card among them. This is primarily because I have no idea who Nick Dunn is. This is kind of cool, because Topps (and, sure, Panini) tends to put the same five prospects in all of their products, which is super annoying. There are a lot of baseball players out there!

Upper Deck had put out it's Victory set for a few years at this point as what I understand to be another budget priced offering that sort of continued on when Collector's Choice was ended. This final set from 2003 decided to be printed in the TCG/CCG style for some reason. I think there might have been a game here as well, but it wasn't very obvious. This is one of the apparently short-printed subset cards.

Here's a Chrome refractor of the former Cardinals closer celebrating with the hopefully not former Cardinals catcher. Great card, though.

Prizm's version of refractors are officially called Prizms, which is confusing because the set is (sometimes) called Prizm. So technically, this is a Prizm Prizm. That never caught on, though, so most people call them Silver now... which is not any less confusing considering the cards are, by default, silver in appearance. I hate Panini.

Next up are a couple of really nice parallels from Kevin of The Diamond King. I've never been a big fan of pink cards, but the Pink Fireworks design is just crazy enough that it sort of works.

Although the fireworks are nothing to sneeze at, I was really blown away with this numbered-to-25 orange Matt Carpenter card from the 2017 Topps Gallery set. The art is actually... impressive?! Using the old Bowman design here probably helps it a bit.

The last but certainly not least power packed envelope came from The Bucs Stop Here. This one came chockful of set needs, including last year's Allen & Ginter offering.

Giraffe Calf! It rhymes, and it's cute! I have been really fascinated with baby animals that look almost exactly like miniature versions of their parent animals lately for some weird reason. (See also: elephants.) I've also spent a fair amount of my Saturday mornings this year watching BBC America, which turns into an all-day animal show extravaganza.

Trevor Bauer is surely some kind of wonder.

My big priority set for the year has unfortunately fallen by the wayside a bit, but it's still nice to document a few more pickups from the 2020 Turkey Red project. I haven't looked into whether or not this is continuing into the soon-to-be-released Update set, but I lost a lot of steam when Series 2 blasters became scarce. Stupid LouBob.

These Cardinal Turkey Reds are heading straight to the team binders, though. Actually, Ozzie has his own binder. He gets special treatment apparently.