Night Owl Cards

Many of you have probably already seen the Topps flagship design for 2010, which was released today. But if not, I present it to you here now. Ladies and gentlemen, the 2010 Topps design, the most modern, cutting edge, futuristic design that we know: What? That's not it? You say that's the design for a 2002 card? The 2002 Post set? An oddball set? You say THIS is the design for 2010? Hmmmm . Could have fooled me. (I actually like the 2010 design. A Topps set that looks like an oddball set is cool with me). H/T: Wax Heaven .

I try not to get into the vintage vs. high-end debate. I admit, my allegiance lies with vintage, and I do wince when I hear the astronomical amount someone paid for a pack of five high-end cards. But I prefer not to get into the reasons why I have the feelings that I do. It leads to messiness, and really, I turn to cards to get away from messy. Truthfully, I can appreciate cards from all ends of the spectrum. Old cards. Shiny cards. Kid-oriented cards, 8-inch thick cards. I want them all equally. I also find that collectors who don't deal exclusively in vintage or modern/high-end, collectors who can find beauty in all of it, are the collectors that interest me the most. I can relate to those folks the best. One of those folks is the Wicked Ortega down in Florida. He seems to deal in all kinds of cards. I see vintage cards on his blog, My Past Time ... I Love It , and I see super intense fancy ones, too. He also seems to enjoy both the old-timers and the current players, judging by...

I hate to get all grandpa on you, but it's on my mind, so you're going to read it. I was looking at this fine Upper Deck card sent to me by madding of Cards on Cards, tilting the card this way and that to figure out what the heck was written on it, when it occurred to me: I'm SICK of TILTING cards! Now, tilting to see a second or third image on a Sportflic item, or tilting to see the rainbowosity of a refractor is one thing. As much as I'd like to absorb everything on a card with a single glance while it's lying flat, I do see the point of truly playing with your cards. It makes the hobby more fun. But tilting every which way in order to READ what the heck is on the front of the card is getting way old. I'm not 65 years old. I don't need bifocals. I have excellent eyesight. Stop making me feel like I play bingo every Monday. Gold and silver foil is cool in moderation, but I don't think it needs to go on lettering anymore. As much as I liked this year...

(Final week of baseball's regular season. Where did it all go? This was the fastest regular season I have ever experienced. I have a feeling future ones will go even faster. So, it's time to slow it down for a minute or two. Take a moment for Cardboard Appreciation): Poor Herb Score. He lost the second Cardboard Appreciation vote-off by a single vote. Isn't that just like a Cleveland Indian? So much pain in that uniform. Anyway, I'm sad for Score, but happy another for Herb -- Herb Washington -- who captured the second spot as one of the 10 Cardboard Appreciation finalists. The votes have been tabulated and here is how the second vote-off went down: 1. Herb Washington (1975 Topps ): 13 votes 2. Herb Score (1956 Topps ): 12 votes 3. Marcus Thames (2006 Upper Deck): 5 votes 4. Jim Kaat (1983 Fleer ): 4 votes 5. Marquis Grissom (1993 Stadium Club): 1 vote This means the third vote-off is officially under way. And it's a tough one. It involves not one, but two, Carlt...

My plea for Clayton Kershaw autograph cards has turned out quite nicely. Since the original post , I have added three Kershaw autographs to my collection. The two most recent ones have come from Kerry at Cards on Cards and Marck at The Collective Troll. The one here is from Kerry. It's on-card and it's a 2008 Heritage card, so this is one tremendous card. The only drawback is Kershaw's jersey is obviously airbrushed or whatever the heck they did to it. It's an awful job. It looks like Kershaw is wearing a blue blouse. Or men's pajamas from the '60s. Just terrible. But that bit of ugliness hasn't deterred me in my quest to collect Kershaw cards. Even though my player collecting comes third behind my set- and team-collecting quests, I have decided to start a page that lists my favorite Dodger players. On the page, I have a list of the cards that I own from each of those players. If you find a card that isn't on that list, and the player is still w...

Goodwin Champions finally made an appearance in my neighborhood this weekend. Blasters and rack packs and a stuffed gravity feeder. I wanted the opportunity to give Goodwin a fair evaluation. I was intrigued enough to want to see them in hand, even though my gut feeling was that it was a copy-cat set (tobacco-era retro set that includes mini cards, with black border variations. Sound familiar?), and the artwork didn't impress me much. Then, I got even more wary after the reviews came out. Some liked them, but a lot of others weren't impressed. They said the scans looked better than the cards. They said the cardboard was flimsy. Not good signs. But finally on Saturday I found the cards and bought a couple of rack packs. Twelve cards for $4.99. "Super Value," Upper Deck claimed. I was surprised to find that I actually don't dislike them. They're not bad. Some cards are very nice. The cardboard is just like Goudey , which I don't find flimsy at all. ...