Night Owl Cards

  More than eight years ago (lordy, 2013 is eight years ago??? ), I wrapped up a series where I looked through the Baseball Card Magazines from when I subscribed to it between 1982-85.   I loved doing that series and was sad when I ran out of issues. But just yesterday I realized I hadn't explored all of the issues that I owned.   The April 1984 issue that you see here I used to kick off the series in 2011. But all I did in that post was make fun of people wrote to the letters section hoping the supposed errors on their cards (some weren't even errors) were going to make them rich.   I didn't bother scanning the rest of the issue like I did with all the other ones to follow. So I'm going to go through that now! It's like when you subscribed to a magazine for a year and they gave you a bonus issue before your subscription ran out!   OK, you saw the cover and what was in store as far as teased articles. Here is another peak with the index at the front of the mag...

(Here we are at another blog milestone at Night Owl Cards. This is the 300th Cardboard Appreciation post! I've been running this series since the first one dropped on Oct. 13, 2008 . They arrive much less frequently these days -- and they're a lot longer. But it's still going! I also think we're not too far off from voting for a new member of the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame, so stay tuned for that. But now, it's time for Cardboard Appreciation!): I can't believe how long it took me to obtain this card. It's really my fault. I should have focused on finishing the 1982 Fleer set a long time ago. But I have known about the back story on the '82 Fleer Rod Carew card since the cards came out that year. It's a commonly told story now -- and has been referenced on the blogs many times -- but back then only the magazine rack would tell you. In the spring 1982 edition of Baseball Cards magazine, a segment near the beginning of the edition reviewed the...

These are the eight Baseball Cards magazines that I either purchased from the CVS downtown where I lived or came to my folks' mailbox via subscription between 1982-85. I have saved every one and have documented every one on this blog. Baseball Cards magazine was never finer than during this fledgling period as a Krause Publication. It continued in good form -- long after I had lost interest -- through most of the '80s. Then Beckett took over and that era of good feeling fell apart in a hailstorm of rookie obsession, what's-it-worth and card-grading. And now here we are, blogging because the magazines don't give us what we want. Anyway, the person behind those exciting early days, that period when I would stalk the magazine rack at the CVS in hopes that a new edition had arrived, was Bob Lemke. Lemke, a fixture in the hobby since the 1970s, was already a force in collecting publications as an employee at Krause when he started Baseball Cards magazine as a twic...

The other day on Twitter there was some minor discussion about the same photo of Pirates catching prospect Elias Diaz appearing in both Topps Heritage and on a Panini Donruss autographed card. Another Twitter guy rightly explained that this isn't the first time this has happened and offered up the famous example of the same Rod Carew photo being used in 1982 Topps (the in-action card) and 1982 Fleer. I went a step further and showed the magazine blurb about the Carew card from the old Baseball Cards magazine from the spring of 1982. Have I mentioned how many times I miss that magazine? The scan also included a bit of the next article on the right, with the heading "Collectors Say, 'That's All," and that intrigued a couple of people. In fact, that particular item has been on my mind for awhile as a potential post (I actually addressed the topic once already when I covered that particular edition of the magazine). With what's been going on in new ...

I'm sad to say that this is the final post in this series where I show the Baseball Cards magazines that I saved from when I had a subscription to the magazine from 1982-85. I have eight of those magazines still and this is post No. 8. The final one. These posts have been a hoot. Not the scanning -- the scanning has been miserable -- but everything else. Because of these posts, I've read articles that I haven't read in more than 25 years. A lot of the information and opinions in those stories still hold true today, as we'll see here later. This particular magazine is from the fall of 1982. This is the first edition that came to my house after I sent in the subscription card. You might be able to make out the faded fingerprints on the image of the Jim Brown card up near the top right side. That's the sign of a well-handled magazine. The teasers on the left side of the cover promise an interesting issue, especially that "How To Buy Superstars For Penni...