Night Owl Cards

  From the beginning, I was not impressed.   Trying to collect three sets was a lot. This was the new world in 1981, after collecting nothing but Topps for the previous six years (with some side runs into Kellogg's and Hostess). While eager to try out all the newness, I felt overwhelmed -- a newspaper carrier salary couldn't possibly cover three sets -- and was looking for ways to cut back. Finding fault with one of the new sets would help me control my habit.   Donruss made it easy that year.   The difference between its set and the Topps and Fleer sets that year was obvious right away. While Topps was printed on the cardboard that I knew from the beginning, and Fleer's was also sturdy if a bit rigid, Donruss was flimsy. You could bend the card easily. I had never experienced cards on such thin stock. Even the Hostess panels felt more solid.   I ranked Donruss third among the new trio right away and while purchasing all three throughout that summer of '81 -- be...

  Just a few minor things to mention today, nothing that will appeal much on its own. Readers seem to be catching up on outside time anyway. I took a look at my two stacks of 2024 Topps flagship sitting on my card desk and they looked pretty high. That inspired me to add my wants to TCDB and, in a flash, I'm down to the final 40 cards to finish the set. I barely had to lift a finger, except to search for the cards requested in exchange, which always can be fraught with peril. My remaining wants are on TCDB but I'll put them here as well. Per usual, guys like Elly De La Cruz and Aaron Judge aren't popping up in trades. Topps couldn't possibly double-print those guys now could it? So here's the list ( List edited as of 9/8) : 141 - Elly De La Cruz, 375 - Matt Vierling, 442- Shota Imanaga, 593 - Carlos Rodon, Wilyer Abreu, 695 - Kyle Gibson Also I haven't accounted for needing a second Dodger card for Series 2 on TCDB so add 492 - J.D. Martinez, 500 - Shohei Ohtani...

  I mentioned when I completed the 1988 Donruss set that it marked the first time I had completed four major sets from a given year.   I don't see that happening for me ever again. After the '80s, it's difficult for me to find multiple sets I was interested in enough to try to complete them. For example, I've completed 1993 Upper Deck, I wouldn't bother throwing money at any other '93 set outside of a token Topps complete-set buy. (I'd take a gift of a complete '93 Stadium Club or Pinnacle set but I'm not buying them).   So '88 is a milestone, a one-of-a-kind collecting feat. I like that it's '88. That's the year the Dodgers won the World Series; it's the year I graduated from college; it's the first full year of my wife and I going out. It's basically the last great year before adulthood stomped everything to hell.   To mark the feat, I thought I'd take 10 notable players from this time and compare their cards from th...

  Hey, look at Mr. Big Shot publishing his second set-completion post in a week, so much for struggling in this department this year. OK, so it's 1988 Donruss. I am not proud! Thanks to other folks' generosity --. er, eagerness to get rid of their share of the most overproduced set of all-time -- I finished this set in record time. It's been slightly more than a month since I announced that I wanted to complete this. I'm sure that's the fastest I've ever wrapped up a set.   I received most of the last few cards that I needed from Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life ! He shipped me nine of them.   He also informed me that some of the cards No. 600-and-above were short-printed, which I had never heard of before. Granted, my time devoted toward Everything You Wanted To Know About 1988 Donruss has been limited. The Julio Franco card actually showed up twice -- on the same day -- as I received another one all by itself. Chris of Nachos Grande was so surprised to see ...

  In my current state of gathering 1988 Donruss (down to one card as of today!), I was reminded of a border feature from the mid-'80s to early '90s on those Donruss sets. The border patterns lined up if you positioned the cards just so. So I did it, just to finally see what junk wax fans were talking about and ... yeah, to get an easy blog post. The first four Donruss sets all featured white borders, but in 1985 it started go with colored borders and it also started doodling inside the borders. I was not a fan of Donruss doodling, as I've said many times most of those '80s Donruss sets just don't look that professional to me, compared with their counterparts at the time. But I'm not above collecting them or lining them up. The 1985 set featured black borders and red racing stripes that you could line up with any other card. Then in 1986, Donruss decided to just put lines all over the entire card. It's pretty easy to line these up with approximately 100 lines...