Night Owl Cards

  I was surprised to discover that the last time I updated this series was more than a year ago .   I like writing this series, and it's not super work-intensive. But I also try to balance it out, so I'm not running these all the time. Apparently I balanced things out a little too much.   As a refresher, this is where I pick a card year or two and find players in that set who had just one card for their whole career. They didn't appear on a multi-player rookie card or in any other major set (I discount minor league issues and sets of that nature). They are true One-Card Wonders.   The last time I did this I said I wanted to wrap up the 1970s, so that's what I'm doing now. The last years to finish are 1972, 1973 and 1976.   The most surprising year here is 1972.   There are just four One-Card Wonders in the 1972 Topps set, which is 787 cards large. Interestingly, two are bunters.   #77 - Ron Theobald, Brewers #331 - Stan Swanson, Expos #366 - Jimmy Rosa...

  I'm already pleased with the brand-new collecting atmosphere on Bluesky as compared with Twitter. One excellent sign is I can find blog topics from the upstart site, which was a big Twitter benefit before it went south. The other day, the discussion turned to Roberto Clemente cards, and I realized that just about every vintage Clemente card that I have acquired comes with a story. I suppose that's a given with how treasured and expensive his cards can be, but it's just weird how the stories jump out with him. I don't know if I can say that about any other vintage player.   To demonstrate, I will go through each of my vintage Clemente acquisitions and the story that is attached to each. I don't have a lot of vintage Clementes, so this won't be long. Also, longtime readers have likely read these all before because I've recounted each of them on my blog when they happened. But this blog is about 70 percent regurgitation at this point anyway.   July 2024 1969 ...

  I was looking at a football card on one of the online shopping sites the other day. It wasn't anything I sought out, it just caught my eye. As often happens with football cards, I didn't know the set and I didn't know the player (I don't remember what card it was now). But I was curious about him and I quickly looked for what position he played. But there was no position listed on the front. That annoyed me (it doesn't take much). It's been a long time since I've written about positions on the front of baseball cards and I touched on this once awhile ago , so I figured it was time for another one. Let's do a little examination of sets that have not put the position on the front of their cards.   This will mostly cover Topps because as often happens with these historical card reviews, I get to the 1990s and it's just a mess and would take an army of spreadsheets to sort out, and, guys, I still have a full-time job.   But I will mention that Bowman p...

  I always feel a bit sheepish writing about upgrading cards in my collection. Most of my card upgrading happens "underground," meaning I usually don't write about it. It feels very much like a first-world problem. But I shouldn't feel that way. First of all, just about any card collecting "issue" is a first-world problem because the hobby is a first-world hobby. Anything that I write on here that I consider "a problem" is not really a problem. Secondly, I'm not encasing my cards in plastic and assigning them a random number based on condition. Since there are plenty of people doing that -- and I still have almost no idea why -- I shouldn't feel weird about upgrading. All I'm doing is finding a different copy that doesn't have wrinkles or worn corners.  A portion of my recent sportlots order was upgrades -- a few of them quite overdue. I'm going to show off each of them and explain why they were upgraded.     1978 Topps Reggie J...

  I'm working on a couple of blog posts that involve research and I was hoping one of them would be ready today, but it turns out we're a long way from that. Thanks, work week. So I've got a fairly quick post instead.   I think we can all agree that among the poses that appeared on baseball cards from the '50s through the '80s, one of the best was the first baseman's pose with mitt outstretched waiting for the throw, or even better, with the ball nestled in his glove.   I liked those shots a lot. There's a reason that you haven't seen the few examples of that pose in the 1975 Topps worst to best countdown yet. They're just too good.   I believe the first time I became familiar with that pose was with the 1976 Mike Hegan card. It was so cool. Had no idea who Mike Hegan was (didn't pull his card in '75), but that card couldn't have been a better introduction. It sure left an impact, and it's never left my brain.   So any player making t...

  I was interviewed for a story yesterday that I think is headed for a future issue in one of the Beckett magazines. It's not the first time I've been interviewed about cards, but it doesn't come around all that often. I'm more used to being the one doing the interviewing. But whether you are the interview-ee or the interview-er, you still have to do your research ahead of time, and I was doing that shortly before being peppered with questions. In looking through my blog, I got a little sidetracked and put a list together of the sets I've discussed the most on NOC. I was somewhat surprised by the results. I'll show the top five right now. No. 6 is the 1976 Topps set, that's why Luis Tiant is there. I didn't want to leave him out.   1. 1956 Topps (147 times)   2. 1972 Topps (140 times)   3. 1975 Topps (125 times)   4. 1977 Topps (102 times)   5. 1971 Topps (94 times) All right, those of you who know me, or at least have been reading this blog for a few ye...

  So, yesterday I wanted to respond to someone with the last time I bought a pack of Topps Chrome. In case you didn't hear, Topps released its 2022 edition of Chrome last week and people are flipping the ef out. I am very glad I'm not in that rat race anymore and just on the chance I could get one person to see the light, I wanted to find out how long it's been since I actually sought out that stuff. I turned to my trusty blog. It's helped in this area countless times. Some bloggers don't have an archive where you can look up past posts or don't have a list of labels. I don't know how they get anything done. I realize there are "now" people on this planet, where only the most recent post matters and anything they've written in the past didn't happen, but I can't comprehend living like that. I need my research. I need to answer questions.   Thanks to the blog, I found out the last time I bought a pack of Chrome was 2019. I didn't end...