Night Owl Cards

  I'm making good on a promise I wrote back in July with this post, with just one day to spare.   During the last One-Card Wonders post I finished all the 1970s one-card wonders and said I wanted to do the same with the 1980s in the next post, which I said would happen before the end of the year.   Well, the end of the year is here and I can't let all those people who have been waiting for the last five-plus months down! So don't worry, be happy! The last OCW post of the year is here!   In this episode I'm covering 1988 and 1989, the only years I haven't touched from the 1980s. I'm also tackling not only the Topps sets from those two years but Donruss, Fleer, Score and Upper Deck, too (This means I'm technically not done with the '80s after this post because I still haven't uncovered OCWs for some of the other 1980s Donruss and Fleer sets).   As a reminder, I define One-Card Wonders as cards of players who appeared on one major release only. I discou...

  I resolved to do this post about a month ago when Dime Boxes listed some of what he considers the worst of the junk wax era. I ranked my least favorite from this time way back in the blog's early days, so this time I wanted to list what my favorites from 1987-93 are. You probably already know most of them -- I'm not exactly quiet on my card favorites -- but this post is also to counter all the praise for traditional favorites like 1987 Topps and 1989 Upper Deck. I can be contrarian and those two sets were never my favorites when I was buying packs during that time. (Didn't even see '89 UD).   So I'm listing seven of my faves for posterity. Why seven? Because I consider the junk wax era to have lasted seven years, 1987-93. I can't comfortably squeeze 1986 and 1994 into that span, based on my experience of that time. Here is a very quick run through. 1. 1993 Upper Deck: You should know this by now. I'm writing a blog about it and everything . I don't kn...

  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...

  Topps released details on this year's Series 1 yesterday. Release date is Feb. 15, which is a mid-week day that means I could potentially land some cards at a nearby big-box  ... if this was 2019. If I get something by the end of February, I'll be surprised.   No matter, I'm not too into current cards these days, but I refuse to dim the little-boy excitement that returns every year at this time when the new cards are released.   One specific mention in the release caught my eye:   All right, let's break that down.   Yes, it's the 1988 Topps design's turn to be featured in Topps' yearly retro insert set if we're adhering to weird 35th anniversary stipulations. But that was NEVER A GUARANTEE because of what Topps did in 2018. So, not surprisingly but also, yes, surprisingly. You never know what Topps is going to pull.   I know this is just an insert set, who really cares, and Topps has inundated us with so many past designs -- between all the retro ins...