Night Owl Cards

I have been looking forward to 2015 Stadium Club ever since I saw the image of the Fernando Valenzuela card that Topps released months and months ago. The news just got better as I learned that 2015 Stadium Club would be a retail product, for the first time since 2008. I also received an advance look at some of the photos going into the product because A Cardboard Problem blogger Sooz is working at Topps and she showed a few of them because her mission was to select photos for the set! Given her newspaper background (we know a little something about selecting pictures at newspapers), I knew this set was in good hands. The only bit of information that concerned me was the release time -- June. This would conflict with the release of Topps' Series 2, which is also traditionally in June. And with Allen & Ginter following a month later, I knew I couldn't possibly collect all of those. Well, here it is, the end of June, and the task is even more daunting. I actually ...

Since I am just a few cards away from finishing off the 1975 Topps minis and the 1972 Topps set must wait until I have cash to throw at high numbers, I need a set-collecting project that I can pursue at a leisurely pace, that won't strain the budget, and that fellow collectors are willing/able to send. That's why I'm chasing down the 1981 Donruss set. This is endlessly amusing to my 15-year-old self, because when the first Donruss set came out that year, it was as if I was buying homemade cards. I can hear myself snorting all the way from 1981. By '81, I had collected Topps and basically nothing but Topps for seven years. Topps was as professional as you could be when it came to card collecting. They knew what they were doing. And their product -- for its time -- was high quality. A large set with adequate photographs, complete stats and an attractive design. No one could do what they did. So when Donruss and Fleer offered sets in 1981, we opened our very fir...