Night Owl Cards

This is the kind of post that's best reserved for a much more succinct manner of social media. In fact, that's where I saw this little nugget of information that I never knew before. I never knew it despite collecting the 1974 Topps set and completing it, despite doing so years and years ago, and despite viewing this Tom Walker card a couple dozen times at least. Willie Mays is on the card, too, you guys. You can spot his "24" as he waits his turn in the cage, as a member of the New York Mets there at Shea Stadium. Fantastic. I learned this from none other than the SplitSeason1981 account over on Blue Sky. He's the former mayor of Cooperstown, and a card collector. I traded with him several years ago. He mentioned the neat Mays fact today and I was dumbfounded. It's amazing what you can learn even after 50 years of hoarding trading cards. That's all I have for you today. It's been a hectic week but I'm glad I picked up at least some cardboard know...

I just made print copies of the two 1973 Topps cards that are in my Dodgers binders so I can slip them into the empty spaces in my 1973 Topps set pages to signify that the '73 set is complete. They'll be place-holders until I get a second copy of the Walter Alston card and the Cey-Hilton-Schmidt rookie third basemen card. As you can see, I need a new ink cartridge, but this isn't the season for such "extras." So I'll have to make these copies again. I wanted to get them done now though because it's time for the "1973 Topps Set Is Done" post. I'm not pushing it back any longer. Completing the 1973 Topps set is cool for all the usual reasons, including that I have all the Topps sets from 1971-91 finished now, but for one other big reason, too. And that is to right a wrong. I didn't used to care about this set. Really. There's a post about it way early in my blog history. I ranked 1973 Topps at the bottom of all th...

If you collected cards in the 1970s, you know this card. It is an example of a cameo -- gone wrong. It is a hyper-cameo, if you will. Wes Parker is hogging all the screen time, obscuring the subject of the card. This is almost more Parker's card than Steve Garvey's card. But it's a popular and often-cited card because of how it's presented and how different it is. And people can interpret it as a "passing of the torch" kind of card as Garvey eventually succeeded Parker as the Dodgers' first baseman. This card is also a precursor to what we're experiencing today. I'll get to that. The Garvey card, obviously, wasn't the only example of a cameo on a 1970s baseball card. There are several others, including several in the same 1973 Topps set, perhaps one of the most cameo-heavy sets of all-time. Here is another often-cited one: But cameo pictures have appeared on baseball cards probably since the beginning of cards. Here is one from ...