I saw over at White Sox Cards that Steve received his White Sox Surf book. He is discovering the joys of owning images of every Topps White Sox card from 1952-87, all in one book.
I, too, wanted that joy -- only with Dodger images -- several years ago. I saw that there were these wonderful books that separated all of the Topps cards by team and displayed all of that team's cards by year. The books were issued in the late 1980s and there was one for the Indians and the Mets and the Twins and pretty much every team.
I couldn't send my money fast enough. And soon I had my very own Los Angeles Dodgers Surf book.
Isn't that great?
Since it's the Los Angeles Dodgers, there are no Brooklyn cards in this book. Only Topps cards from 1958-1986. There's actually a Brooklyn Dodgers Surf book, too, which I should get someday.
But this particular book has kept me happy for a very long time.
It is page after page of Dodger cards.
You want 1964 Dodgers?
There they are.
You want 1983 Dodgers?
You got 'em.
Sorry about the blurred edges. Scanners don't like bindings.
For each year of cards, the book provides a brief summary of how the team did. In the back of the book are career stats for the players featured.
The Surf books are a wonderful, wonderful thing.
The only drawback is that often I determine whether I need a card by whether I have seen the card before. If I have seen it, then I assume it's in my collection. Well, the Surf book throws me completely out of whack. I think I have a card that I actually don't have and it's ALL THE SURF BOOK'S FAULT!
But we've worked that out, the Surf book and I, and I am back to thinking that it is the most wonderful book that I own.
But it's not the only one I own.
I have the Red Sox Surf book, too.
My brother worked at Fenway Park in the mid-to-late 1980s and he would get his hands on all kinds of cool stuff. This is about the only thing I managed to gain for myself (40 percent of my immediate family are Red Sox fans, so I'm lucky I got this).
The Red Sox Surf book covers more territory than the Dodgers book. It goes through the 1987 cards. It also begins with the 1952 Topps set. So you get to see this:
That's about as close as I'm going to get to an uncut sheet of '52 Topps.
If you don't have a Surf book of your favorite team, by all means, go out and get one. They're readily available and I believe most teams are represented -- that is if the team existed in the late 1980s.
Even though I'm solely a Dodger fan, I always have thoughts about picking up every Surf book. Then I can spread them all out on the floor, lie on my back, leaf through the pages and pretend I have every card from every set from 1952-87.
I'm for anything that combines cards and books. But this is the best combination ever.
How about putting out an update, Surf?
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