Night Owl Cards

  All right, picking up after a work day that caused me to question life's existence, it's time to show off the second package that arrived from the National ... I think.   The note attached didn't mention any trip to the National, but I'm making a guess based on the timing, the card selection and the location of the sender. Or it may just be that he had these cards sitting around the home. I don't give reader Dave the "Dave sends great cards" moniker for nothing.   This selection of cards was across the board of my interests and then a few things thrown in that, yeah, I'm that kind of collector but I didn't really think of grabbing those.   Let's start with these:   I love seeing those all together, but almost all of my non-Dodger Fleer stickers sit in a where-do-these-go stack (yeah, I know, STICK THEM) on my card table.  I never have a clear idea of which Fleer stickers go with what, except for some early '80s ones and the wonderful ...

I was looking at the 1971 Topps football cards posted on A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts yesterday and admiring just how fantastic the design was for those cards, when I remembered that I had meant to make a post about this some time ago. The '71 Topps football design is not my favorite of all the Topps football designs. I need to have an emotional connection to a design and I was too young to be collecting in '71. However, I do think the design is brilliant in its simplicity and in its ability to reach its target audience: kids. In fact, I think that all of the Topps designs for the big four sports that year -- football, baseball, basketball and hockey -- achieve the above goals. The cards issued in '71 across the board were: 1. Simplistic 2. Colorful 3. Fun 4. Got kids to notice That is why I think 1971 was the best design year Topps ever had. The football design is as enjoyable as opening the colored funnies on a Sunday. Each card displays a cartoon fig...