Cards I Love Part 19 - 2001 Bowman Heritage(s) Albert Pujols

We have now reached the Albert Pujols portion of these posts.  I am not saying that the final 10 cards are all Albert cards, but there are several left.  I wanted to hold these cards off towards the end of the month, so that I would have a little bit more time to write and add on to the rough outline of the posts.  I started writing about baseball cards in 2012, the same year that Pujols left the Cardinals for the Angels. 

I was not really thrilled about it at the time, and I have probably not spent enough time on his cards during the past 7 plus years.  I had a huge collection of Albert Pujols cards while he was a Cardinal, many of them are still here.  I cut down on the volume when he went to Anaheim.  I would really like the chance to sit down and type out some thoughts on some of these cards. 

First up, my favorite Albert Pujols rookie card(s). 

The 2001 Bowman Heritage is one of the simplest Pujols rookies, which is what makes it so great.  The card has a black and white photo, a plain white border, and old school card stock.  Simple is better in this case.  Much better. 

I love modern cards as much as the next person. There are tons of Pujols rookie cards with serial numbers, autographs, die-cuts, foil, relics, and all sorts of other attributes that belong on a card made in 2001.  Many great cards, and a few really bad ones.  Yep, there are bad Pujols rookies. 

Donruss Class of 2001. 

Terrible. 

I do have one other Bowman Heritage Pujols rookie card, only this one has never made an appearance on the blog.  The Bowman Heritage card pictured above has appeared in a couple of other posts.  The other one is a bit of a hard card to find these days.  The card below was a promotional item that Topps gave out at the National Convention in 2001. 

Same basic concept with a different picture.  I don't know how many of these cards are around, I just know they have become rarer and rarer.  I find it to believe that a card given out a convention is somehow hard to find.  I could see Topps giving these out by the truckload.  Maybe not.  

The back of the card has a Topps advertisement at the bottom of the blurb.  Love the 888 customer service number on the back.  

The regular card is my favorite, but the promo feels a lot like it would be ranked 1A if I were making a list of all my Albert Pujols rookie cards.  There are so many good ones though, a few more of them this weekend.