Night Owl Cards

I'm into year eight of Night Owl Cards and I'm still coming across experiences that I never knew possible. For instance, a few days before Christmas, a very large package arrived in the mail. It was from Greg of Nearly Mint , who is one of my tightest acquaintances on Twitter ( @grogg is currently collecting the 1974 Topps set, by the way). I knew that he was preparing something impressive to send me. I just had no idea how impressive. What came out of that box was an entire baseball card binder. In the last eight years, I have never received a binder in the mail ever -- not even an empty one, let alone one filled with baseball cards. But that's exactly what it was. I was so taken by it that I didn't even think about the cards at first. My first thought was: "Cool! A new binder! I NEED one of those! Then I started to open it and take in the variety of cards contained within. It occurred to me that it was much like a storybook -- in cardboard form...

It's fairly clear that out of all the decades in which trading cards were produced, I love those from the 1970s the most. After that, I enjoy the '80s, followed by the '50s. Next is the '00s/current cards, followed by the 1960s, followed by the '90s. And although I enjoy pre-1950s cards probably more than some of those already listed, I don't dare figure out where they fit in, because I just haven't seen enough of them in person. But it's fair to say I don't limit myself to a single time period. Some day I might. It's more and more tempting to focus on the '70s and dismiss everything else. But I'm not at that point yet. All you gotta do is look at my want list to get that. And, damn, did Greg/grogg ever look at my want list. The operator of Nearly Mint has sent quite a few great cards my way over the years and this package I rank right with the best. I can say with confidence Greg is one of the greatest want list analyzers in ...

What would you say is the greatest Dodgers team set? There are a few that you could name. The 1952 Topps Dodgers set is the Boys Of Summer, a very desirable and almost impossible-to-complete team set. The 1953 Topps Dodgers set also commemorates the Boys Of Summer but in painted form. The 1955 Topps and Bowman Dodgers team sets came out the year of "Next Year," when the Dodgers finally won the World Series. But neither set is all that it could be because each card company had exclusives with their own players. The 1964 Topps set shows the Dodgers who swept the Yankees in the Series and also features a tremendous World Series subset to underline the fact. The 1975 Topps set colorfully marks the Dodgers' return to prominence as a World Series team. The 1978 Topps set is the one I associate with those back-to-back Dodgers World Series teams, the first teams I watched on television. And the 1982 Topps, Donruss and Fleer sets recall the Fernandomania year. But I t...