The Chief And Church Are Wooden Sort Of

2005 Bowman Heritage 17 Chad Cordero and 97 Ryan Church

Base and Mahogany editions.

Oh I do love me some Heritage. Be it Bowman or Topps. Bowman started the concept, well Topps Mother company actually, but technicalities we'll leave in the basement. Anyway for the Nats inaugural season 2005 both Topps and Bowman had a Heritage set. Topps used their 1956 design, while Bowman used their 1951 design for Heritage. I will only concentrate on the two Bowman cards well four Bowman cards really in this post and the two variants and the two players shown.

First up lets talk about the base about the base no treble. As mentioned above the 2005 Bowman Heritage set reproduces the 1951 Bowman design very faithfully using the modern players. I love when the Heritage sets get things right. First up numerically, but not alphabetically is Chad "The Chief" Cordero. The Nationals first closer who ranks up there as one of their best in their 12 plus year history.

2005 Bowman Heritage 17 Chad Cordero Nationals

Checkout how faithful they were to the 1951 design on this back. They even have 1951 for the copyright date, well for the design copyright date, the actual card copyright date they have in the smaller more detailed copyright info that they do now-days.

Now for Ryan Church  who played outfield for the Nats for a few years and when he was traded away to the Mets with Brian Schneider for Lastings Milledge I was quite upset. At the time November 2007 I didn't have a trading card blog so on my regular blog I made a rant post about the trade. Amazingly it was exactly 10 years ago today I posted that. Ryan had become one of my fave Nats during those early years along with Schneider and Cordero.

2005 Bowman Heritage 97 Ryan Church Nationals

Aright well since this is a quick and dirty end of the month post, and I am working on the draft very late on the next to the last day, well very early on the final day actually. Trying to finish before it is time to get up for work. I need to remind my self to stop this end of the month procrastinating. I tell myself time and again all throughout the month that I need to make some posts, and often I start a draft or two on something. Well right now I do have a bunch of drafts in my posting queue. I had a couple of other posts I started drafting. I intended to post one or two of them in time for November, but I have no cards for them yet. I had recently gotten some of these Heritage cards from Sportlots Stores. I may have duplicates of the base, not sure.  The Next Cordero at one time I had watched on Ebay and COMC but eventually got a better price on a Sportlots Store search. I had even purchased the Cordero Mahogany card from Sportlots about a month prior but the seller couldn't find their copy and gave me a refund. So the one I got was from a completely different seller.

Oops I spoiled the surprise of these next cards in the previous paragraph, as well as at the beginning of this whole post so there Pfffftthhhhpppt. (however you spell the sound of a raspberry.)

I didn't have time to check the spelling. I did have an image of Bill The Cat saved on a USB Thumb drive. Dang it I thought it was one where he was saying "Pfffffffhhhpppttthhtt"

I don't know the why or the reasons they decided on this particular variant, but for some reason when they first came out I liked them and thought the concept was pretty cool. I am talking about the Mahogany edition of these cards. The front image is put directly on the raw surface of the cardboard without a clean whitewashed background as a result these card look a bit darker than the regular base edition.

So here are the Mahogany Editions:

 2005 Bowman Heritage: Mahogany: 17 Chad Cordero Nationals

 2005 Bowman Heritage: Mahogany: 97 Ryan Church Nationals

I'm not sure why, but I noticed both my Mahogany cards have slight creases on them. Maybe it is part of the design. I'll have to look into that and try to find my other Mahogany cards I got. I have the Brian Schneider and possibly one or two others.

Here are some side by side comparisons just for fun. First up the backs of the Chad cards. The regular base is on the left and the Mahogany is on the right. You can see slight surface creasing. Hmm upon further checking (and on the front) the creasing is more like veins especially on the fronts so I think it is intended.

2005 Bowman Heritage: 17 Chad Cordero Nationals

Regular Base Edition on left, Mahogany Edition on right.

2005 Bowman Heritage 17 Chad Cordero Nationals

Base on left, Mahogany on right.

Hmm I didn't make a separate side-by-side for the Ryan Church so here is the opening image repeated.