Night Owl Cards

With the bombshell news that Fanatics has swooped in and grabbed Topps' exclusive license with MLB, as well as the MLBPA (and some other stuff, nba, probably nfl, blah, blah) , collectors' thoughts have naturally turned to what will happen to cards and card brands in the future. We have almost nothing to go on except some dates. The Players Association deal with Topps ends when 2023 ends, with the MLB agreement lasting a couple years longer. I don't want to speculate on what cards might look like during that interim period between expiring deals. Like I said, that's quite a bit into the future and ... oh yeah, lawsuits.   But there is one thing I do know about that time period: Topps Heritage, featuring the spectacular 1975 Topps design, was expected to drop Marchish of 2024. You might know how much I love the '75 design.     I have completed both the 1975 Topps set and the parallel mini set. I'm attempting to accumulate as many buybacks of the set that I can. I...

Eight years ago, when I was in full miinnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii mode, collecting the 1975 Topps mini set and actually putting miinnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii in the title of blog posts multiple time just to annoy my readers, Topps issued a set called Lineage in which it created an insert set modeled after those same 1975 Topps minis. I went bananas for it and I completed the full 200-card mini insert set. This was full-on mini overload because I was accumulating both the original '75 minis and the 2011 Lineage minis at the same time. It's a wonder I made it through the entire period without being thrown into the funny farm. That was an exciting time, filled with fun, colorful mini-sized cards to collect. But one colorful mini-sized card that I didn't get behind at the time were the Lineage mini relic cards that were parallels of the '75 Lineage mini cards. I've never been a relic collector and these cards offended my sensibilities as a '75 m...

I received another round of 2019 Archives '75s and Allen & Ginter minis recently -- this time from Johnny's Trading Spot . These seem like the popular elements of my collection at the moment. I'm about halfway through in chasing down the Archives '75s, so I don't feel like I can make an overall judgment about what's in that portion of the set. But you know I'm super curious about the color combinations, so I'm going to make an evaluation anyway. Those are the ones Johnny sent. RIP Christian Yelich's knee, and I see along with Posada, Topps is still forcing in marginal Yankee "legends" like Matsui. This is why retro sets like this will never be truly legitimate. The checklists are based on what legends Topps can land/feel will draw the most collectors. Anyway, none of these color combos eliminated any of the remaining color combos from 1975 Topps that I haven't been able to cross off in 2019 Archives. Again, the combos ...

I underwent minor back surgery today. Like I said, it was minor. A few stitches. No big deal. But like any surgery, there is some pain, discomfort and usage of words like "ointment" and "gingerly." But like an idiot I thought I could blaze through it. I had what I thought was a clever post, but it involved a lot of research and digging out a bunch of cards. Up the stairs I went. Down the stairs I went. I lifted binder off of binder off of binder and set them down on top of binder on top of binder on top of binder. Then I did it all again. And again. Until ... Ow! And I was only halfway through. Well, that was it. There will be none of that card cleverness today. That can wait for another day when I don't get a knife in my back. No, today, I just have some cards for you from Cards On Cards . But my goodness, madding and I have traded a lot. In fact, I just sent a package out to him the other day. Among the cards he sent were three more Clayto...