Night Owl Cards

Although I bought a lot of cards during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I did not go as crazy as many collectors during that period. I confined most of my binging to 1989 Topps and ignored quite a few brands that were everywhere at the time. One of those ignored brands was Donruss. By the time the late '80s arrived, I had restricted myself to Topps -- because I didn't have time for anything else. College was in full swing and after that I was trying to carve out a career. Donruss was easy to ignore because I rarely took it seriously. To my way of thinking then, Donruss cards were for little kids, meant to be thrown in the toy box at the end of the day. In recent years, I've come to appreciate certain Donruss sets from that period. It's nothing for me to go down to the dollar store and grab some '88 or '89 Donruss for a little pick-me-up. And when you do buy those packs, you get the inevitable puzzle pieces. As I've said before, I didn't know wh...

I'm returning to that terrific card box from David -- the box that was my National -- for one last post. I mentioned in that post that I received several base cards from 2013 Topps Series 2. I'm still debating whether I want to complete the thing or not (leaning toward "not"). But tucked in that box of 2013 cards were what I thought was packaging filler. Donruss puzzle pieces. Through the life of this blog, I have received my share of Donruss puzzle remnants that served as filler. Those thick cardboard slabs are excellent packing material and I have probably around 40 pieces just sitting in a box in my basement. It's quite the variety ... An arm of Aaron here ... An ear of Yaz there ... And half a cranium of Stan the Man. It's like a slaughterhouse floor for cardboard greats. I had even accumulated seven different pieces for the Duke Snider puzzle from the 1984 Donruss set (yet another reason why it's the only Donruss s...