Darryl Porter. I Mean Darrell Porter.

I like to glance through the Topps Vault page over on Ebay every once in awhile to see if I can find a cool Cardinals or Durham Bulls card.  I have kind of moved on from some of the blank back cards that come out of current releases that I used to pick up the last few years.  No regrets in many cases about owning some cool one of a kind cards of players I really like, especially some of the ones that do not get a ton of cards made.  My blank back Taylor Motter might be one of my favorites....

Pretty sure I never even made a post about this card.  Motter is one of the universally beloved players amongst Durham Bulls fans.  I was so happy to pick up this card.  More recently I have really turned my focus on finding 1980s and 1990s Cardinals stuff on the Topps Vault.  Recently I came across one of the great Postseason actors in Cardinals history.  

1982 World Series MVP Darrell Porter.  

I have bought a few of the photo proof card in the past and really enjoyed go through the different Topps products from that year to match them up to a specific card in a specific set.  For example, I ended up with a Willie McGee photo proof card a few years back.....

which was listed on the Topps Vault Ebay Store as being from 1990.  The photo does not match his 1990 Topps base card....

but it might have been used for his Topps Big card.  Maybe.  

In any case, it was definitely used for his Topps Fan Favorites card in 2003.  

I was looking forward to taking in the same sort of trek with the Darrell Porter card.  Based on the photo posted on the Ebay Store I already had a good idea of where the search was going to take me.  It's not like there were a ton of 1984 Darrell Porter cards.  Here was the listing picture....

It looks a lot like the small corner picture on Porter's 1984 Topps card....

I started collecting in 1983, but 1984 was the first year that I collected the entire year with a realistic chance at assembling an entire set of cards.  I love the design of these cards and they still rank as one of my favorite sets of all-time.  

Well, the package arrived and the photo proof was actually a little disappointing.   It's a teeny tiny little photo of the former catcher.  Maybe because it's a small picture on the card?  I've never tried to mass produce my own baseball card set, so I am not entirely sure why the picture is so small.....

Your guess is as good as mine.  The best part of the card actually ended up being a Topps Company envelope that was stuffed into the package.  

I am not sure what the 1 23/32 number in the corner is exactly, but the 285 is Darrell/Darryl/Daryl's card number in the 1984 Topps set.  I guess this could also be the O-Pee-Chee proof since the top of the envelope has the OPC letter at the top, but the O Pee Chee card is just the same as the Topps card with the exception of the logo?

Anyway, I guess I have a tiny picture of Darrell Porter and a cool Topps envelope where someone could not spell his first name the correct way.  Glad there was someone editing something at Topps back then.