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.
