Night Owl Cards

Exactly one year ago today, I began a series on the best card backs in collecting history. I told you that the series would be a nice little summer diversion. It might even last into autumn, but then we'd move on to more serious card matters. As usual, I was wrong. A countdown of the top 50 card backs is actually a fairly large undertaking, and like almost all of my "bright" ideas, the execution takes much, much, MUCH longer than anticipated. So we're now midway through 2011 and I'm just now ready to tell you what the No. 1 card back is. I'm sure the anticipation was at fever pitch maybe nine months ago. But now, you couldn't care less (or COULD care less, depending on your grammatical viewpoint). You're barely paying attention. But I'm pressing on, because that's what I do best. Here we go. The No. 1 card back in all of card history is ... ... ... ... 1992 Topps Kids!!!! Dayf was right! He did it again! He guessed it! ...

It just occurred to me that I've gone to the junk wax well for the last two card backs. They really were doing some good things back then. In fact, they were so proud of their breakthroughs that they overproduced them so that no card from 1987-93 has any meaning at all. It's like the classic rock station playing "Eye of the Tiger," followed by "More Than a Feeling," followed by "Hotel California." You can go a whole half hour and not even be aware that there is music playing. So, let's put a little meaning back in one of the sets from that period. The 1991 Stadium Club set was Topps' response to Upper Deck, and what a dandy-looking set it was at the time. We all know how revolutionary full-bleed photos and thick card stock was at the time. But how about those card backs from that set? Stadium Club introduced us to the concept of a scouting report on the back of a baseball card. Perhaps it wasn't the first set to do this, but it ...

I don't understand the reverence for '89 Upper Deck. I do understand that it was a game-changer: exceptional photography (for its time), different card stock (which I'm now sick of), premium-priced packs (ooooh, now there's a bonus for the consumer), and "anti-counterfeit" holograms (I was going to say I don't think anyone was trying to counterfeit late '80s cards, but judging by how many are still floating out there, maybe they were and still ARE). I think some collectors who were kids at that time are looking at the set in a haze of nostalgic bliss, much like I look at sets from the 1970s. But there was no 1989 Upper Deck at the drug store where I bought monster piles of '89 Topps just out of college, so I can't tell you what I thought of UD in '89. I view the set with no nostalgic attachment. However, I can tell you, years later, that the card backs were definitely something worth noticing: People who are stridently anti-Uppe...