Night Owl Cards

  One of the many running sub-themes of this blog is how unobservant I am, and how concerned I am about it.   I scold myself over and over for not noticing things on cards, whether it was painted hats when I was a kid collecting in the 1970s or widely broadcast errors on current cards over the last 20 years. When I do notice a small detail I'm almost triumphant because finally my brain wasn't on auto-pilot.   I get concerned about this "flaw" because my real-life, salaried job is about noticing things. I'm supposed to be an expert on this. I am scouring whatever I can to get sports stories in the newspaper, whether it's locally or nationally. I've become pretty good at it -- well, actually I've been pretty good at it for a few decades now.    So my theory is that I spend so much time on "noticing" in my work life that maybe subconsciously my brain doesn't want to notice so much when it comes to my hobby. That's what I tell myself anyw...

  Just a few minor things to mention today, nothing that will appeal much on its own. Readers seem to be catching up on outside time anyway. I took a look at my two stacks of 2024 Topps flagship sitting on my card desk and they looked pretty high. That inspired me to add my wants to TCDB and, in a flash, I'm down to the final 40 cards to finish the set. I barely had to lift a finger, except to search for the cards requested in exchange, which always can be fraught with peril. My remaining wants are on TCDB but I'll put them here as well. Per usual, guys like Elly De La Cruz and Aaron Judge aren't popping up in trades. Topps couldn't possibly double-print those guys now could it? So here's the list ( List edited as of 9/8) : 141 - Elly De La Cruz, 375 - Matt Vierling, 442- Shota Imanaga, 593 - Carlos Rodon, Wilyer Abreu, 695 - Kyle Gibson Also I haven't accounted for needing a second Dodger card for Series 2 on TCDB so add 492 - J.D. Martinez, 500 - Shohei Ohtani...

  In my current state of gathering 1988 Donruss (down to one card as of today!), I was reminded of a border feature from the mid-'80s to early '90s on those Donruss sets. The border patterns lined up if you positioned the cards just so. So I did it, just to finally see what junk wax fans were talking about and ... yeah, to get an easy blog post. The first four Donruss sets all featured white borders, but in 1985 it started go with colored borders and it also started doodling inside the borders. I was not a fan of Donruss doodling, as I've said many times most of those '80s Donruss sets just don't look that professional to me, compared with their counterparts at the time. But I'm not above collecting them or lining them up. The 1985 set featured black borders and red racing stripes that you could line up with any other card. Then in 1986, Donruss decided to just put lines all over the entire card. It's pretty easy to line these up with approximately 100 lines...

  OK, I'm steering this blog away from Dodger cards for a post or two. I'm already getting complaints. 😒 I was running a couple of errands before work yesterday when I stopped at Walgreen's to grab some cookies for someone who has been very good. As I turned away from the shelf, I looked down the aisle and noticed a middle-aged man staring at the toy area, right where the baseball card repacks normally hang. Could there be baseball cards? I had heard a month or two ago that even Walgreen's repacks were being raided by the flippers so I didn't even consider finding cards when I walked in, but what was this guy looking at? As he moved on to something else, I moved in. I was surprised to see three Fairfield repacks hanging on the metal rack. I immediately noticed something skimpy about the box but grabbed the first one (probably should've grabbed the second or third after seeing what was in the first). Now, the reason that the box was so skinny is that these repac...

I haven't written a "Define the Design" post in a year and a half, which is a little unusual because each year I like to see if I can come up with a name for the new Topps flagship set. So let's take care of that now. If you haven't heard already, the 2018 Topps set is the "waterslide set." This was a no-brainer, the first thing I saw when the design was released. The team logo is shooting down the waterslide. Weee! Yay! The White Sox are celebrating! Let's send the Sox logo down the waterslide! The shiny, glowing effect around the logo and on the top part of the slide seems to indicate motion as the logo swooshes down the slide. I can't see anything else. Not even those particles breaking off to the side that looks like when Mike TeeVee got zapped into a million pieces overhead in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". I'm glad to get a name out of the way quickly for this design. Because I didn't do so for last y...