Night Owl Cards

  I have a couple of 1975 Topps-centric posts to publish before the 50th anniversary year of my favorite set -- and my first year of buying cards -- is through.   This is the first of those posts. Ten years ago I wrote " A history of 1975 Topps tributes ," in which I documented all of the '75 Topps themed cards that I had known up to that point. It was pretty thorough, but it's 10 years old now and there have been so many more tributes since.   In that post I asked readers for other examples and said I'd add them to the post. But I didn't do that. I even forgot the post existed.   The only reason I'm updating it now is reader Dave kept commenting on it with other 1975 examples. He provided several in 2022. Perhaps I noticed that then, but I forgot about it again. Then, at the start of this month, he offered up another example. That got me to finally address this and provide an update.   So let's start with some of Dave's examples. One of them, the ...

    Although I recently lamented the former card bloggers who have disappeared from the virtual card world -- couldn't tell you what they're doing or even if they're alive -- there are still plenty of former bloggers that I see on other social media sites. That's one of the reasons I have not been solely a blogger since the rise of other social media forms.   While blogging is easily my preferred platform for cards, communicating with old blogging friends in more informal ways, whether Twitter or Blue Sky or wherever, is a bit easier, casual-like and a little more fun (sometimes). It's random card thoughts and and conversations in easy bites. Another plus -- trades spring out of nowhere. You start the day with no intention of exchanging cards and 20 minutes later I'm swapping cards.   Recently I sent a few current Tigers cards to ex-blogger/ex-twitterer Boobie Maine , who now is in the card (and music) conversation on Blue Sky. I know too many Tigers fans lately...

With the bombshell news that Fanatics has swooped in and grabbed Topps' exclusive license with MLB, as well as the MLBPA (and some other stuff, nba, probably nfl, blah, blah) , collectors' thoughts have naturally turned to what will happen to cards and card brands in the future. We have almost nothing to go on except some dates. The Players Association deal with Topps ends when 2023 ends, with the MLB agreement lasting a couple years longer. I don't want to speculate on what cards might look like during that interim period between expiring deals. Like I said, that's quite a bit into the future and ... oh yeah, lawsuits.   But there is one thing I do know about that time period: Topps Heritage, featuring the spectacular 1975 Topps design, was expected to drop Marchish of 2024. You might know how much I love the '75 design.     I have completed both the 1975 Topps set and the parallel mini set. I'm attempting to accumulate as many buybacks of the set that I can. I...

I showed this 2019 Archives Aaron Judge card during the recent end-of-the-year spectacular to note that I had completed the 1975-themed portion of the Archives set. I consider these Archives "partial sets" as sets unto themselves and I'm spending the next couple of days dedicating a small binder to them. I'm also reserving a binder for another small set. I received two of the final three cards that I need for that set from Jeffrey of Cardboard Catastrophes . Just need the Christian Yelich from wonderfully over-the-top 2019 Holiday to complete it. Anyone have it? But anyway, back to the Archives partial sets. Three years ago, I completed my first Archives partial set when I collected all of the 1979-themed cards from 2016 Archives. I am going to place those in a binder in which they'll share space with the 1975-themed Archives cards. I gathered the cards together for paging and I noticed one interesting thing right away: My first ...