Night Owl Cards

   I had planned to publish my giveaway contest post of the extra goodies I received from The Diamond King's giveaway today. A nice festive post to kick off the weekend.   But that's been weather-delayed. My backyard helps tell part of the story as it converts into a pond for the second time this winter. A warming trend, complete with howling winds to keep everyone up at night, came through just as I got off of work last night. I'm on no sleep and the gloomy, doomy sky is not ideal for taking pics and a photo-heavy post.   I had planned to display all the card goodies I'm giving away but also a bunch of recent cards I had received from people who had been spurred on by DK's original giveaway. But I can't show dark pictures on such a cheerful post! (This should be exactly the kind of spark that gets me to spring for scanner number 4 or 5).    So that post is pushed back, hopefully to Monday. The sun better be out -- or at least there better be snow on the gr...

  It's my all-time favorite player Ron Cey's birthday today. He's 77. Yikes.   The last couple of years I've been able to show a card that "matches" with his birthday. You know, 1975 Topps with 75 years old, 1976 Topps with age 76, etc.   So this is his 1977 Topps card here. This was a big year for Cey and for me collecting him. Let's start with me.   The '77 season was really my first year of being super invested in major league baseball. I already knew I liked the Dodgers and that Cey was my favorite player, but what did that really mean? In 1977 I had the full concept down. This is why I was so glad that I pulled Cey's card that year very early on in the card season. I think it might've been from a rack pack but I don't know for sure.   As for Cey, he enjoyed a standout, powerful season in '77, beginning with the very first month. In April that year, he batted .425, hit nine home runs and drove in 29. He still holds the Dodger record...

  Blog readers appear to be on vacation this week, which is fine, it's where I want to be. I don't want to put too much effort into a post today anyway, so I just have a follow-up from a post from a few months ago. Back then I was updating my progress on the Ron Cey MSA discs from 1976-77. The joy of collecting those is certainly not the fronts, with every one basically the same, Cey's hat black as night and a generic vibe you could pick up from yards away thanks to the blazing yellow edges (it was the '70s).   No, the goodness is on the back.     I showed off nine versions on that post. I've since added two more. I wanted to have more by this point, but I get distracted by so much card stuff and some of the variations aren't easy to find. Here are the two I've added: Towne Club Pop Centers. And Holiday Inn. So that brings me to 11. If I add the smaller Wiffle Ball disc in my collection, that's a full dozen.   But there are too many differences between ...

  When most card collectors think of parallels, they think of present day cards, or at least cards from the last 25 years or so. Some may think back to the 1990s, which is when the mass production of the parallel began. Some may even cite 1989 Donruss, as I have, with its Grand Slammers inserts that came in a variety of top-and-bottom colors on the front. Parallels have been running through the hobby for decades and decades, long before anyone even called them parallels. Many collectors see parallels as a plague, there are so many now that it's impossible for the brain to keep up with them -- and if you do, you're seen as a genuine nut case with way too much time on their hands. I like dabbling in parallels but try not to waste a lot of money on them, I chase way less of them than I did 10 years ago. For my parallel excitement now, I go back to the 1970s. Yes, the '70s had parallels, even if they weren't intentional.   I've posted about chasing the Ron Cey MSA discs...