White Envelope Wonders

I don't think that younger me would've ever been able to grasp the idea of collecting a set that I knew from the get-go could never be finished. Of course, younger me never collected anything from before my time. And even though the average collector didn't know how many were actually being produced at the time, cards of the late 80's and early 90's were always readily available in pack/box form, and therefor one never got the sense that any of the sets couldn't be completed. In fact, as the years progressed, sets from that era continued to feel easier and easier to complete. Heck, by the late 90's, five bucks would buy you a box of just about any product from ten years before, and said box would almost always produce a complete set. I could be misremembering, but even as a kid who didn't collect non-current cards, sets from ten years prior to my existence, or even ten years prior to the start of my collecting, never felt as easy to complete; though they never felt impossible to complete either.

These days on the other hand, unless one is flush with oodles of extra cash, many, many, sets (new and old) feel like they are near impossible to ever complete. And, unfortunately for older me, I seem to be continually drawn to such sets, especially those of the vintage variety (some of which you've seen for the last couple of Sunday's).

The 1955 Bowman baseball set is perfect example. I really like it, and have in theory begun to collect it, but I waited much too long to start; and as such, know that there's zero chance of me ever completing it. And yet, I'll still go through the motions, acquiring cards where I can. It's kind of annoying to think that I may've had a chance to complete it had I started fifteen years or so ago when I came back to cards, but not now. The boom is supposedly easing on modern cards, but I don't think I'll live long enough to see the bigger names from a set like this coming back down to Earth. People's desire to pay someone else to attach an arbitrary number to their cards has grown too much for reasonable prices to return on things like this anytime soon.

I think that as of this writing, my 1955 Bowman "set build" is made up of about 12 cards, more than half of which were once owned by noted author, and resident knower of all things 1955 Bowman, Jeff, from Wax Pack Wonders -- including this one, which he was kind enough to send earlier this year.

I'd be lying if I said I had been familiar with Joe Paparella prior to getting this card. Aside from a couple of NBA referees back in the 90's, I've never been one to notice or pay much attention to sports officials. Apparently Joe spent the entirety of his 20-year career in the American League. It's interesting to me that the back of this card notes that he was purchased from the American Association (that was AA ball) in 1945. Not hired, purchased. It makes it sound like umpires were indentured at the time.

This was my first ump card from the set, which was kind of neat, that's only part of the set that I remembered for a long time. I think I read an article in a price guide when I was younger, and the umpires were the only aspect of it that stuck with me. The card itself was slightly trimmed along the bottom edge at some point, which I would've avoided had I been purchasing it, but as a hand-me-down from a set like this, I won't complain.

I'm probably biased, but I feel like card bloggers are in a league of their own when it comes to sending PWE's, especially when speaking in terms of variety. I mean aside from being the same sport, these last two cards could not be more different from each other. Flair was a brand that was way out of my price range back when it was new, and I didn't own any until they started appearing in TRU repacks. Generally, I do like the various designs for them though. I also like their slight chunkiness. They've got beef, but not so much that you can't put them in a page.

I didn't add as many Bo's to the collection as I should've (or would've liked to) this year. I think that this was one of the better one's though.

Jeff seems to have the inside track on cards from this set as well. He already provided the Bo I needed from it last year, and then this year he provided this nifty Edgar, which had been a Top 10 want of mine. I watched a good portion of Edgar's career growing up, and have been a fan of his (as an athlete and a person) for decades now. This is a set that I wish I would've collected back when it was new. If I had, I might've actually tried to collect the silver and gold parallels too. It would've looked really good having three rainbows per page. And I hadn't noticed it until just now, but with the foil muted by the scan, the 'Special Edition' box where it is makes it look like Edgar's swinging an axe. Talk about slicing the ball!

This envelope did contain a fourth card, but it was another one for the Beavers collection, and therefor, will, hopefully, be appearing on that blog at some later date. There was other thing of note in here, and even though I don't think that was meant to be anything more than a packaging material, I was still enamoured by it enough to throw it on the old scanner...

Joe Paparella arrived in this sleeve (it's clear by the way, not black). Most folks who have collected during the internet age are familiar with Dean's Cards, at least in passing. I for one however, had never heard or seen anyone say that they had actually purchased something from Dean. I've been his site a few times, and remember when he used to list on COMC, but have never come across anything of his that I thought was affordable. Hopefully Jeff won't think that I'm "outing" him here, I just really thought that this sleeve was kind of neat... and did keep it. To me, it was almost as good as a fifth card.

It's been long enough now that I can remember if there was any impetus behind this envelope, or if it was just because Jeff is good people and likes to send folks cards when he can. Either way though, I'm grateful. The four cards were dispersed amongst four different collections. That's the sort of envelope I like. And if that wasn't enough, I also got an interesting penny sleeve for my non-existent penny sleeve collection 😏.