Night Owl Cards

  When I completed the 1970 Topps set a couple months ago, I mentioned that I'd like to extend my run of Topps complete sets a little bit longer. The run was complete from 1970-91. I wanted to stretch that out a little bit on either end. 1969 is a definite, provided I can raise some dough for the toughies. But I knew 1992 would be up next, just because it would be easy enough. No real plans though, I'd get to it when the time was right. Little did I know, the right time would show up as I wandered through social media a couple weeks ago.   A collector on Twitter, from whom I've bought cards before, had decided to downsize his collection and he was holding a major sale that involved selling a whole bunch of his complete sets from the '70s, '80s and '90s, as well as a few from the '50s and random stars cards from the '50s and '60s. (He's dedicating his collecting life to pre-war cards and Tigers -- neither of those appeal to me, but best of luck to...

  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 finally ordered a blaster of 2022 Topps with a Christmas gift card, and I felt the way I feel when somebody buys me socks -- glad I didn't have to use my own money on THAT. So, you'll see some 2022 Topps in March. I know you're excited. But in order to find cards I could actually open right now, I had to go to the flea market in town, where I found that 1970 Roberto Clemente a couple of months ago . There was nothing like that there -- the glass case mostly contained Yankees I can't afford nor care about, or cards I had already -- but around the corner were some sealed packs, and not the usual stuff I see either. Welcome back, 1992 Topps! It's been 30 years since I've opened you! I don't know why I don't see '92 Topps out the wild as often as I see 1988-92 Donruss, or 1990-91 Fleer, late '80s Score or 1991 Upper Deck. Perhaps it's because it's just plain better than all those other sets. It really is one of the best main sets from the...

I have a feeling there will be more than two of these "Spot the Difference" posts, judging by the reaction to the first one. There were lots of responses to my last post on this topic, both in the comments and on Twitter, with additional examples of cards that feature design color elements that don't jive with the design colors used with fellow teammates. I thought I'd show some of those suggestions here, along with a couple others that I knew about that I didn't show the last time. The 1988 Topps set was mentioned a lot because it featured several color differences and I knew that. The one that gets mentioned the most is the Keith Comstock card, which is actually a variation that was corrected, which is why it received so much attention back in the "error frenzy" of the 1980s. The blue team letters is the correct version and the white team letters is the variation. But enough of that, we're here to find the differences that were n...