Night Owl Cards

  With the way that Topps Heritage has dropped a lot of the traditions that made it so fun to collect, I kind of assumed/implied that every tribute used in the past was out the window. But that's not entirely the case.   The subsets from the chosen year still exist, the All-Star logos do, too. The design is the same -- um, sort of. And, I realized that Heritage is still matching card numbers, linking players who play on the respective team now with one who played on it then.   I don't know if it's happening as often as when I first did this comparison 12 or 13 years ago, probably not. But it's nice to know something is still right with this brand that's been the biggest disappointment of the 2026 card year for me so far.   I went through the modest amount of 2026 Heritage I have and found a handful of matches. I'll start with the obvious ones.   Each of the 2026 Heritage card shares its number with the 1977 Topps card. The italicizing of NL and removing the peri...

  I'm already pleased with the brand-new collecting atmosphere on Bluesky as compared with Twitter. One excellent sign is I can find blog topics from the upstart site, which was a big Twitter benefit before it went south. The other day, the discussion turned to Roberto Clemente cards, and I realized that just about every vintage Clemente card that I have acquired comes with a story. I suppose that's a given with how treasured and expensive his cards can be, but it's just weird how the stories jump out with him. I don't know if I can say that about any other vintage player.   To demonstrate, I will go through each of my vintage Clemente acquisitions and the story that is attached to each. I don't have a lot of vintage Clementes, so this won't be long. Also, longtime readers have likely read these all before because I've recounted each of them on my blog when they happened. But this blog is about 70 percent regurgitation at this point anyway.   July 2024 1969 ...

  I can't think of anyone who runs an online trading card store who is as generous as Steven and Nancy at the baseballcardstore.ca I've taken advantage of their cheap prices on cards, especially during the pandemic. Most of the inventory won't bowl anyone over -- these are cards for the set or team collector, mostly. But I've always found stuff I like/want and you can't beat it when you add up what's in your cart and think, "is that all it costs?" The baseballcardstore has adjusted its pricing format a couple of times, mostly due to rising shipping costs, I believe. But it remains a good deal, which I haven't taken advantage of in too long. That is about to change, though, because of what Steven just sent my way last weekend. He's been storing up Dodgers for me again. And I just received 40 Dodgers cards, simply as a gift, a damn-good RAK. Out of those 40, all but two were needs and some of them were rather needy needs -- I mean like needs goin...

  I was interviewed for a story yesterday that I think is headed for a future issue in one of the Beckett magazines. It's not the first time I've been interviewed about cards, but it doesn't come around all that often. I'm more used to being the one doing the interviewing. But whether you are the interview-ee or the interview-er, you still have to do your research ahead of time, and I was doing that shortly before being peppered with questions. In looking through my blog, I got a little sidetracked and put a list together of the sets I've discussed the most on NOC. I was somewhat surprised by the results. I'll show the top five right now. No. 6 is the 1976 Topps set, that's why Luis Tiant is there. I didn't want to leave him out.   1. 1956 Topps (147 times)   2. 1972 Topps (140 times)   3. 1975 Topps (125 times)   4. 1977 Topps (102 times)   5. 1971 Topps (94 times) All right, those of you who know me, or at least have been reading this blog for a few ye...