Night Owl Cards

  It's another "long weekend" with just two days off for me. But it was enough time for my hobby to travel north for a brief visit.   Yesterday I finally paged the 1983 O-Pee-Chee set that I received from Angus of Dawg Day Cards months ago and put them in a binder. It kind of violated my new rule of "no incomplete sets in a binder" as I still need 67 cards to finish it. But I consider it a priority set -- anything from 1983 is -- even if I don't spend much time on it for awhile. It's just a relief to stop staring at that stack.   Then today I was sitting in a hospital lab waiting room -- I'm telling you, it's just another Monday around here -- and thought enough to bring some reading material. It was the latest copy of Beckett Vintage Collector with David Clyde on the cover.   I've read that story already, and the one after it. But the one up next, that I read fully during my 45-minute wait, was also related to O-Pee-Chee.   This was written...

  Over recent years, I've often seen online people joking, or being serious, about moving to Canada, due to various reasons related to the government or politics.   I have no desire to move to Canada, even the thought of one day when I retire moving elsewhere within the state sounds overwhelming. Besides, the most desirable time to move to Canada would have been when I was a youngster, during the '70s and '80s, when O-Pee-Chee issued its very best baseball cards on store shelves and counter tops throughout that massive country.   I would have loved to open OPC packs, say in 1979. But not if Topps packs weren't also available, then I'd just be pining to live in the U.S.   No, the easiest way to experience Canada for me, outside of Tim Horton's, is letting the country come to me by obtaining those OPC cards.   Recently I landed a few extras from Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! He had just what I'm looking for.   It was just six cards and three of them wer...

  As a known enthusiast for the 1970s, I've got the history of the decade down pretty well. I didn't follow the news much during that decade -- I was just a kid -- but a lot of what happened was around me, on the TV here and there, the gas lines and the peace talks and the disco scene. I was aware of what went on in the back half of the decade more than the front half.   The first part, I don't know a lot, just what the history chroniclers tell me. The year 1971, in particular, is the most mysterious to me.   I recall listening on the radio to a decade wrap-up music show that was popular around the close of 1979/early 1980. Mixed in with the music from each year was a news highlight from that year. I can't recall each one, except for 1971, which recounted the tale of "D.B. Cooper" and the hijacking of a Boeing 727, Northwest Orient Flight 305, out of Portland, Oregon in November of that year.  It remains the most mysterious hijacking in U.S. history. Cooper --...

Are you starting to feel like I don't have any time for you? Sorry about that. It's true. I don't have any time for you. But you've figured that out already. Perhaps it's me cutting down to posting four days a week (from a former twice-a-day poster). Perhaps it's no card packages from me for weeks. Perhaps it's the lack of in-depth content or unusually short posts, at least by customary NOC standards. As usual it's not me, it's the job. Work. Eat. Sleep. That's about all I've accomplished recently. I'm hoping to shake myself out of my stupor at least somewhat after this weekend, because, thank the sports gods, THIS IS THE LAST WEEKEND OF HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS UNTIL WHATEVER TOO EARLY TIME THEY DECIDE TO START THEM UP AGAIN!!!!! I know there will be a time when they decide it's an excellent idea to play high school sports around the calendar with absolutely no break at all. I see them inching closer toward that ridiculous bri...

I thought it would be appropriate on the day that the NHL playoffs begin that I feature the junk wax packs that I received from Captain Canuck at Waxaholic . But first I wanted to mention that by sending one card, he answered one of the many nagging questions that I have had about cards that were issued during the time I wasn't collecting. This one relates to the Upper Deck Vintage cards released in 2002. The design mimics the 1971 Topps cards, except that the information is on the bottom of the card instead of the top. As we found out yesterday, UD has landed itself in court because Topps says that some of UD's 2009 inserts look like past Topps designs. I don't know why Topps filed a lawsuit now when UD was doing this back in 2002. But anyway, that's not the question. The question relates to the back of the 2002 UD Vintage card. The back looks almost identical to the 1971 Topps card, except in one key area. It's yellow instead of the familiar dark green '71 b...