Night Owl Cards

  Take a look at this 1977 Topps Bobby Murcer card. Notice anything different?   Sure you do. The card face is cloth, not cardboard.   This fascinated me as a young collector. I was around 12 or 13 when I saw 1977 Topps cloth stickers advertised, probably in our subscription to Baseball Digest magazine. I couldn't conceive of how they could make a card sticker out of cloth. The fact that they were the same size as a regular Topps card and showed the same photos (in most cases) as the regular set made me want them even more.   But I never ordered them, didn't have the money at the time and then later when I got back into chasing cards from my youth, the set was just a little bit cost prohibitive for me. Still, I put them on the "someday" list where they waited for years upon years.   Fast forward to Christmas week 2025. For someone who didn't receive any cards as presents this year, it's been a productive holiday as far as the hobby. The day after Christmas I p...

   It just doesn't seem possible that I'm still reaping the benefits of this blog, a means of communication and expression that is at least a decade beyond its peak.   I expect the perks to disappear eventually, I mean the days of receiving 3-5 random card packages a day in the mail are long gone, which is why I will value each benefit that still comes along.   A little over a week ago, I was in the grocery store getting some supplies for the new mini-fridge in my office at work. I steered over to the magazine display as I often do and spotted the most recent Beckett Vintage Collector -- just one -- staring at me.   I opened the edition to my story and snapped a picture. I still get a kick out of that. That's not the perk I wanted to write about. But we're moving in that direction.   For the last six years, writing magazine articles about cards has helped me obtain cards that in most cases I never would have been able to add to my collection. Baseball cards...

  I've been sitting on this post for awhile in anticipation of something arriving in the mail. It hasn't arrived yet, it's usually here by now, but I'll get to that later. The point is I'm sick of waiting, so this is the post. It's actually worked out in a way because the delay has helped me add some 1970 Topps cards to this post that just arrived from mr haverkamp. He was digging around for some stuff at a card show and came across a few high-number needs of mine! There's that rascal Jose Pagan, always residing in the high numbers , making things difficult. Pretty pleased I don't have to chase this one down. Don Money's a great name from my childhood, I loved pulling his cards (although I remember him exclusively as a Milwaukee Brewer). This '70s version is well-worn and miscut but that monster rookie trophy helps balance things off nicely. Here's a grinning Bob Johnson. Generic name, generic playing position. At least his hat isn't airb...

  I mentioned when I completed the 1988 Donruss set that it marked the first time I had completed four major sets from a given year.   I don't see that happening for me ever again. After the '80s, it's difficult for me to find multiple sets I was interested in enough to try to complete them. For example, I've completed 1993 Upper Deck, I wouldn't bother throwing money at any other '93 set outside of a token Topps complete-set buy. (I'd take a gift of a complete '93 Stadium Club or Pinnacle set but I'm not buying them).   So '88 is a milestone, a one-of-a-kind collecting feat. I like that it's '88. That's the year the Dodgers won the World Series; it's the year I graduated from college; it's the first full year of my wife and I going out. It's basically the last great year before adulthood stomped everything to hell.   To mark the feat, I thought I'd take 10 notable players from this time and compare their cards from th...

  I found it a little odd yesterday that the Oscars were broadcast the same night as the NCAA tournament selection show. Different audiences for the most part, but I know people interested in both. I used to be interested in both. But I probably watched less college basketball this year than the early 1980s, and I think the last Oscar telecast I saw was when Dances With Wolves won best picture. Both are so off my radar that I don't know any of the movies that were named for best picture and could've picked only two of the No. 1 NCAA tournament seeds before they were named. But both events are so ingrained in the American public that those familiar activities, filling out brackets and handing out awards are often used to stir up conversation for whatever topic (fill out your bracket for the top 64 ballpark foods!). I've gone that route to, especially the awards thing. I do it at the end of every year.   And I'm doing it again ... well, the bracket part, not the awards pa...