Night Owl Cards

  Last week I thought I had a post idea for this week about how I wanted to collect. I thought it was time to give up on modern cards. I had done my best to ignore a lot of the extras and gimmicks that come with modern cards, sticking primarily with base cards and perfectly happy to do that, sometimes even completing the set. But even the base cards aren't like they once were -- and I'm not talking about card stock. It's all stuff I've complained about before. The images are samey-same, pitchers pitching, hitters hitting, runners running, celebrating ballplayers celebrating. The photos are cropped so tight that you know Topps or MLB is trying to hide something. When there are backgrounds, sometimes they aren't actual backgrounds, they're stock photos. The sheer amount of City Connect uniforms in sets the last couple of years has to be a concerted marketing effort to get fans to buy them and they also take away from true representation of the team on cards. And, ...

I need to tie off some loose ends about a few different topics, so I'll do that here and then I'll show you some cards from Fuji later. The cards he has been sending out have been all over the blogs lately so what I'll be offering isn't anything new. So, some housekeeping: 1.   Thanks for your comments on the expansion post from last night. I do appreciate them and I know how fortunate I am to receive the amount of comments I do. Sometimes, particularly after a very research-driven post that takes hours and hours over several days, if I receive a comment that says nothing but "you forgot this," it rubs the wrong way. That's what happened yesterday, a few times. I should have a thicker skin but I think I wore it off pulling all those cards out of binders and looking up web sites, and typing, typing, typing. I don't expect praise in every comment, but, you know, "yes and ..." is a little more helpful than "yes but ..."....

(It's International Skeptics Day, but I don't know if I believe that. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 266th in a series): I ordered that Sandy Koufax short-print card from 2017 Update today, the one where he's pointing at the scoreboard. It cost me less than a dollar. That's far below the price it was going for back when Update was first released, and I think the thrill of some of these super short-prints of stars of the past is wearing a bit thin. (You could say that for SSPs in general, but let's stick to the topic). The 2017 Update SSPs of legends haven't seemed particularly special to me. The Bo Jackson SSP is the same photo that appeared in a Topps insert set seven years ago. The Ted Williams Update SSP is admittedly fun. It shows Williams in fishing attire standing on his boat, attempting to reel in a catch. The colors are bright. Williams is in action. I kind of wanted this card as Williams has always been my dad'...

I mentioned in the last post that I received some cards from Royals and Randoms . The star of the package was this short-print of Clayton Kershaw from last year's flagship set. Josh pulled it out of a repack, which doesn't amaze me too much anymore as I've seen all kinds of cool things come out of repacks over the years. This card is more rare than your average Allen & Ginter/Heritage short-print. It's known as an "SSP" in hobby abbreviation lingo, which stands for "super short-print," although many times I've called it a "stupid short-print." I am conflicted about these like I am about many modern day inventions in the hobby. On one hand the card is indisputably stellar. I've been a fan of card variations since the late 1970s when I first saw Burger King cards. There is nothing that will turn my head quite like a different photo of the same player on the same design. But on the other hand -- the stupid hand -- there is...