Night Owl Cards

  Almost 15 years ago, Topps started doing something to its flagship set that was reviled by set-collectors at the time. In the 2009 flagship set, it inserted short-prints of legendary players throughout the base set. Those short-printed cards shared a card number with a regular non-short-printed card of a current player. For example, at card No. 320, Miguel Cabrera shares a card number with the short-printed Johnny Mize. Topps had tinkered with SPs in the base set in preceding years and it was all quite controversial. Set collectors at the time -- myself included -- thought adding exclusive cards to the set pursuit was unfair and making the quest to "collect them all" too difficult or plain impossible. Years later, Topps has continued the practice in almost every flagship set since (although have you noticed there aren't any SPs listed in 2023 flagship so far on TCDB?). They are so common now that even people who fumed over those short-prints, like me, don't even pay...

My card collecting friend R.C. sent me a few cards recently. He said he didn't have a need for them and hoped I might find them useful. These weren't your average cards so I can find a variety of uses for them. In fact, I can break the uses down into: 1. Keepers (Cards I can use in my collection) 2. Traders (Cards I'd be willing to use in a trade for the right deal) 3. Giveaways (Cards that I can use in a giveaway next month) Let's see the breakdown with pretty pictures. 1. KEEPERS This was not the only legends short-print in the package but it is the only one I will definitely keep. The 2009 set was the first one to add short-printed legends cards, I believe, and I remember the carefree days when this was a new-and-interesting concept. Plus, the 2009 Topps set is the first one I completed after coming to blogging. And you can't beat seeing Ryne Sandberg in a Phillies uniform. These are each upgrades. As a proud 1970s card collector, I...