You Down With PWE?

I know I’ve been away for a while, which means that on top of the site switch I have many cards to post about. I’m going to try and update my format a bit going forward: it’ll be a bit abbreviated for many posts. I’d like to properly thank said trading partners, but I’d also like to keep these swaps from bogging down the blog. That tends to make me dread posting, and this whole thing is supposed to be fun. So, let’s talk about three quick trades which arrived on Monday, all small PWE swaps via TCDB.

The smallest was a single card, from Steve T. (sandd0522), and was this Spring Training themed insert from 2019 Series 1. These are kind of goofy to me – we all know that spring training is fake baseball, so it seems weird to highlight outstanding performances* for what is essentially practice. At any rate, I picked up the Nolan somewhere along the way, but I still needed this Altuve. No more!

* If we’re doing this, please to make a card for Rick Ankiel’s bonkers 2013 ST with Houston, which earned him a spot on the Opening Day Roster after he hit .413/.463/.826 across 21 games for a 1.289 OPS with 5 doubles, 1 triple, and 4 homers in his 19 hits. Thank you.

This little bundle came from another new trading partner, Seth H. (CardsInTheBasement). Seth had the final key to 2019 flagship for me (at least until Update comes out) with that McCullers, another throwback insert with that 1984 style Verlander, and several parallels. The Keuchel is a gold from 2017, the 2018 McCullers on the bottom features the All-Star Game logo foil stamp*, and the Peacock has the 150th Anniversary stamp**.

* This is a trend I do not like. Sure, put out a foil-stamped set of the guys in the ASG, but let’s not do an entire factory set that’s just stamped with the logo.

** This one is easier to stomach, as in theory things like this should be a thing that occurs at least every several years, instead of an annual thing.

The last package came in from J.T. G. (TripleCrown24), who I’ve traded with fairly recently. He pulled a few more Astros for me and sent another offer my way. This one included the Bregman and James* from 2019 Ginter, which killed off the team set for me. There were also a couple nice inserts, including a 1983 style Cole from 2018 Update, and yet another hawt prawspect card of Kyle Tucker. Finally, there were those wild 2014 Bowman Platinum Prospect Die-Cuts. Let’s have a closer look at them.

* I had to replace the one I pulled after I got it signed – which, spoiler alert, will be another post.

These are on foilboard, which means they are delightfully shiny and vibrant. But also, these are hella weird, man. Who picks that shape? I don’t need symmetry in my die-cuts, and I’m willing to forego it for a good design, but this looks like they picked out the cut and then at the last minute realized, “oh shoot, we need to get the log in there!” At any rate, these are still cool and appreciated and killed off another insert set for me.

Alright, I’ll probably try to get a non-collecting post up next – there’s a lot to cover from this year.