Night Owl Cards

  The last time I wrote one of these posts, back in March, I said I wanted to start digging into the 1990s to see if there were any One-Card Wonders. It seems impossible that such a player existed in the '90s -- managing to appear on just one major-release in their career -- but I had already found one , and I wanted to see if there were others.   But nothing is ever easy. Even for the player I found, he also appeared on an insert in Fleer that same year, and now I have to figure out whether an insert qualifies for appearing on a second major-release card? Thanks a lot, 1990s, for making things extra complicated ... again. This is what I discovered while searching through '90s cards looking for that One-Card Needle In The Hey That's Way Too Many Card Sets. I couldn't continue. It was much too time-consuming. I don't know if I'll ever go back. To get that out of my system, I went entirely in the other direction -- the 1950s. I haven't checked any '50s se...

  I spent the weekend visiting my daughter and doing family things. That usually means time away from the blog and cards in general, but fortunately my daughter wanted to check out the antique mall and that means checking out the card bowl! If you don't remember, or haven't been following along, that is a ceramic bowl (or maybe it's wooden -- I don't know, I was distracted by cards) I found in a shop . That bowl contained individual vintage cards priced right. I visited the shop again yesterday, and while the wife and daughter entered and turned right, I immediately turned left and headed to the right corner, There, I found the familiar display case of mostly Yankees cards that I either wasn't interested in or were out of my price range. I quickly looked toward the table in the center where the bowl was. But there was no bowl. Oh man. Then I spotted a few nine-pocket pages of football cards over on a side shelf by a window. The first page contained 1977 Topps footb...

  My daughter had her delayed college graduation ceremony this weekend. She graduated in December and the diploma has been in hand for five months, and she's been working a full-time job in her field for just as long. But it was nice to go through the literal pomp-and-circumstance Friday even if there was still the social distancing and streaming and all those other thing that accompany crowds these days. It was nice to see her in the cap-and-gown, with her friends who also graduated, and to go to dinner, and to take an ungodly amount of pictures, all that stuff you do as parents of graduates. Since she has her own life now and there were things to do with The Boyfriend, etc., my wife and I had some time on our own in the ol' college town. We're pretty familiar with it now and even though the town was packed and traffic was a hassle, we went to our favorite places to snoop around. One of them is a two-story antique shop in a walk-through market, just down the road from the ...

The arrival of Sandy Koufax's 1958 Topps card not only allowed me to complete his Topps run of cards, but it also finished off the 1958 Topps Dodgers team set, too. Koufax was the last card I needed. This gives me a nice run of completed 1950s Dodgers team sets, the 1956 through 1959 sets are done. I probably should get to work on that 1955 set. The '58 team set is an odd one and one I've never enjoyed greatly. As I said when I did the Topps set countdown , the '58 set has a DIY feel, which should be admirable but considering you're paying money for the thing, is a little disappointing. Great subject matter of course -- it was the 1950s -- but they look like scrapbook cutouts pasted on colored construction paper. The '58 Dodgers set adds to that inconsistency and slap-dash feel because this set marks the dawn of the Los Angeles Dodgers. While the '58 team card above pays homage to the 1957 Dodgers, the last Brooklyn team, the rest of the set is abou...

Today, I reached what is sure to be one of the card collecting highlights of my year. With the arrival of this 1958 Topps Sandy Koufax card, I have finished an almost 40-year quest to complete the career run of Koufax's cards in Topps flagship. This is an accomplishment that I didn't take seriously for many years and didn't become a realistic goal for me until around 2015 when I obtained three Koufax cards that summer. But, truthfully, I was working with some advantages early on. First, and most importantly, I acquired Koufax's 1955 rookie card when I was in high school in the early 1980s. That card, even in the battered shape that mine is in, has increased in cost exponentially as Koufax's legend has grown. Second, I became interested in Koufax vintage cards almost from the moment I started looking into vintage cards. And, at one or two of the first card shows I ever attended, I bought Koufax cards. Finally, this wouldn't be possible without the ...