Night Owl Cards

(If I was still on Twitter I would have witnessed approximately 78 pack rips of 2026 Topps by now. HAVE YOU RIPPED ANY 2026 TOPPS YET?!?!?!?!? Ignorance is bliss. I don't even feel like checking out the local big-boxes. Time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 364th in a series):   I was reminded of this card recently by The Writer's Journey as he displayed it over on Bluesky. It's a fascinating card for anyone who collected the 1983 Topps set as I did in the year of Michael Jackson.   I completed the set way back in the first year of this blog. But I wasn't actually finished because I didn't have this card. which arrived today.   In 1982, the Angels' Reggie Jackson and the Brewers' Gorman Thomas tied for the American League in home runs with 39 each. That led to the following uncomfortable card in 1983 Topps:   I really don't like three-person league leaders cards (see all of the Topps league leader cards for the last couple of decades), unless the...

  About the only thing I use Twitter/X for now is to promote the latest blog post, claim a card or two and continue my daily call-out of the 1983 Topps birthday players. I probably wouldn't even be doing that but I started the '83 roll call back when the site was still somewhat normal and I hate quitting halfway through. (By the way, my disappearance from rival Blue Sky is because I'm having password issues that I have no time to address). That means 1983 Topps is on my mind just about every day and will be until next June. It's probably a good time to address 1983 then for the One-Card Wonder series. I did 1985 last time and keep trying to finish off the '80s in one, single post, but there's never enough time. So we'll just inch along with 1983. It is a great year, though. One of the best (except for that postseason). To refresh, I'm looking for players from a single year who appeared on just one card from a major release and that was the only card they...

  It's rare that a single card gives me two post ideas. Now consider that the card is this 1983 Topps Jeff Newman and the odds of that are incalculable.   One of my very favorite parts of Topps Traded sets, especially those from the 1980s, is how they capture the passage of time, even if it's really only a year or half a year that's gone by. That passage is demonstrated in how players sometimes change their look.   In the very hairy 1980s, that meant changes in facial hair and there was no better way to demonstrate that progression than in the Traded sets of 1983 and 1984, which each provided inset photos of the player in head shot form.   I was reminded of this with Jeff Newman's two 1983 Topps cards. His 75th birthday was yesterday and I took the opportunity to showcase his different looks:   Look at the drastic change in inset photos. It's almost as if Jeff Newman ducked into a bathroom stall, pulled out a razor and gave himself a trim, stuffed his Oakland A'...

  I was interviewed for a story yesterday that I think is headed for a future issue in one of the Beckett magazines. It's not the first time I've been interviewed about cards, but it doesn't come around all that often. I'm more used to being the one doing the interviewing. But whether you are the interview-ee or the interview-er, you still have to do your research ahead of time, and I was doing that shortly before being peppered with questions. In looking through my blog, I got a little sidetracked and put a list together of the sets I've discussed the most on NOC. I was somewhat surprised by the results. I'll show the top five right now. No. 6 is the 1976 Topps set, that's why Luis Tiant is there. I didn't want to leave him out.   1. 1956 Topps (147 times)   2. 1972 Topps (140 times)   3. 1975 Topps (125 times)   4. 1977 Topps (102 times)   5. 1971 Topps (94 times) All right, those of you who know me, or at least have been reading this blog for a few ye...

Topps recently announced that it's looking for collectors to vote for their favorite Topps baseball design for each decade since the 1950s. There is a site where you can go to place your vote . Topps says that the winning designs for each decade will appear in packs of 2020 Topps Series 1. It doesn't go into detail about what that specifically means so I don't know if we're going to see regurgitated reprints of cards from the design, or cards with buyback stamps on them, or actual old cards from those designs (the much preferred option). This is all well-worn territory for both Topps and collectors who obsess about past designs like me. But since I like that stuff, I thought I'd go through each decade and make my selections and post them here for all to see. Also, I'll add some extra stuff like those people do when they're handicapping the Oscar winners and I read it all the time even though I have no idea what the movies are. My votes: 1950s ...

When 2018 Heritage came out a few weeks back, I was right in the middle of the collecting mob contrasting and comparing. That's what baseball card lovers with a taste for vintage do, each and every year. I spotted the difference in position designations right away and pointed those out. But I knew this wasn't a first-time occurrence and mentioned that I didn't know why Topps keeps doing this. Is there some sort of unspoken, top-secret reason for these changes? This is what I mean. Position designations in the 1969 Topps set provided the player's position: outfield. But 2018 Heritage, for whatever reason, chooses to use the position designation to provide the player's job title: outfielder. It gets very awkward with infielders. The '69 set sensibly abbreviated infield positions by using numbers, because Topps knew there was only so much territory in that colored circle. 2018 Heritage, though, doesn't care about limited territory because it ...