Night Owl Cards

  Four months ago I was contacted by a collector from Toronto who sent me some cards from his childhood collection, all of them O-Pee-Chee from the 1970s. They came from his basement -- I'm guessing they were patiently waiting for someone to come around, as cards in the basement do -- and while I expected just some Dodgers, Jeff sent me so much more. Well, I got another unexpected envelope from Jeff last week and I was blessed with some more basement cards -- almost all of them '72 OPC!   There was a nice selection of cards from all areas of the 1972 set.      I'll start with the team cards since I led with one with the White Sox (record loss No. 121 is on the docket with a defeat Tuesday against the Angels). I'm not turning over all these cards to display the French on the back, but I'll do it with one of the team cards so you know everything is on the up-and-up. There you are, frappeurs and lanceurs.   There were some Rookie Stars, too. Though I'd say no...

  I've been debating publishing this post to recognize Canada Day, which is a week from now. But I don't like waiting too long on showing packages sent by readers -- it seems disrespectful. So here it is now. I've had the honor of several Canadian readers over the years. I was particularly blessed recently when a collector from Toronto emailed me and said he'd been a reader for several years. One post that I made last month caused him to head to his basement and go through his childhood collection of O-Pee-Chee cards. I'm now the owner of several of those childhood OPC cards. Everything that arrived is from the '70s and I think it's so cool that I've got cards that were in someone's basement in Toronto. This truly is an international hobby! Jeff said 1972 OPC was the first set he collected and he was certain there were a few Dodgers in that group. That's what I expected to get and I sure did! That's a bunch of the team set right there. Don...

Since this is the 200th Awesome Night Card post, I feel obligated to do something special. But I don't have any time today for anything extravagant so this will have to pass for "special." It's special to me anyway. This card shows the fourth game of the 1971 World Series between the Pirates and Orioles. It's the O-Pee-Chee version of the Topps card, not that you can tell the difference from the front of the card. The fourth game of the '71 World Series was also the first night game in World Series history. It is a momentous occasion in night game annals and for people like me who collect night cards. But the question is: is this actually a night card? Does the photo of Roberto Clemente come from that Game 4? I looked up Game 4 of the '71 Series, and best I can tell, the photo does come from that game. The angle that the photo was taken from threw me off at first. But after some inner debate (boy, do I have a lot of those), I determined that...

Remember when you received cards and that was enough? Remember when you weren't opening the package hoping that a blog post was contained therein? Not to sound ungrateful -- I like all my card packages equally -- but it is terrific when I can turn a package into a post or two. Pictures of Men has exceeded expectations though. This is now the third straight post involving cards from POM. Call the record-breaking people. This post has to do with where POM originates. Its headquarters are in the proud province of Ontario, Canada. Having lived near the Canadian border more than half my life -- residing near Maple Leafs territory first and then Senators territory -- I'm somewhat familiar with how things operate there and have had very enjoyable times in Toronto, Ottawa and Kingston (not so much in Cornwall). But I still get confused by the O-Pee-Chee. I just can't condition myself to thinking the card I'm looking at may not be what it seems. For 1988 cards, OPC...