Night Owl Cards

  With me pursuing the 2023 Topps Heritage set with an effort that I haven't put into a Heritage set since 2008, I think it's safe to say that I'll be all in for 2024 Heritage. No, duh, you say. But I wasn't so sure the last few years. The short-print situation with Heritage is a major drawback and I don't like negative things floating around my beloved 1975 Topps design, which will be appearing next year. But my reaction to the '74 design this year was kind of unexpected. I didn't think I'd be into it that much judging by my lack of interest in 2021 and 2022 Heritage (the '72 and '73 designs, respectively). But I am. And if I am with this, watch out with that. Of course, I could crash and burn on the high numbers this year and the whole experience spoil everything for next year. Anything is possible. What will never ebb or flow is my passion for the actual 1975 Topps set. It will always be the love of my cardboard life. I will never grow tired o...

  The popular Twitter card question-and-answer feature, CardChat, put out a series of questions yesterday relating to buying cards, particularly in 2022. The last question was simple: show your favorite card purchase from this year.   I was stumped.   Any other year, it would've been the easiest question in the world to answer. But this year, so far, I have no answer.   Sure, I've bought cards I've liked, you've seen them on this blog for the last four months. But there's nothing that stands out as FAVORITE or something that other collectors would see and, say, "oh yeah, that's a great card."   A year ago at this time, I was buying 1956 Topps of superstars, any number of two dozen cards I purchased in the first four months of 2021 I could enter as my answer to my favorite card purchase and be sure about it.   But this year is different. Buying cards is different. If I want to buy vintage, I will more than likely have to pay something unreasonable, if I...

Of all the many series that I have on this blog, there have been few that have connected like the Legends of Cardboard series. I still don't know why that is. The topic is interesting to me, but that doesn't mean anything. There are plenty of posts on here that are interesting to me that were probably read by two people. So it must be something more, whatever that is. All I know is that the Legends of Cardboard posts receive an extraordinary number of clicks. And when a new one is posted, that causes previous Legends of Cardboard posts to increase their readership. It's like the old days when a group would put out a new record album. That would generate new interest for its older albums. A new indication of the impact of Legend of Cardboard is that it has landed me some cards. I wasn't expecting any new cards of recent Legend of Cardboard subject Alex Cole, but Bo from Baseball Cards Come To Life was there for me with a nice selection of Goggles ... I mean, ...

I am already putting the integrity of the "Legends of Cardboard" series on the line with this selection. I am assuming that a fair amount of the general baseball public knows who Alex Cole is. The "Legends of Cardboard" premise is based on the fact that these are major league players almost forgotten by time who still managed to generate terrific cardboard. So with some trepidation, I looked into Cole's online background and actually came across this introduction: "if you don't remember Alex Cole, nobody can blame you ..." Good enough for me. Oh, sure, there is probably some Indians fan out there who remembers as a 12-year-old when Cole stole five bases in a game in 1990. But Cleveland was second-to-last in attendance in 1990, so I believe nobody really noticed. Most references to Cole are obviously freshly researched pieces as they recount his brief, flashy career, his blazing speed, the Indians' doomed plan to move the fences back ...