Night Owl Cards

  I resolved to do this post about a month ago when Dime Boxes listed some of what he considers the worst of the junk wax era. I ranked my least favorite from this time way back in the blog's early days, so this time I wanted to list what my favorites from 1987-93 are. You probably already know most of them -- I'm not exactly quiet on my card favorites -- but this post is also to counter all the praise for traditional favorites like 1987 Topps and 1989 Upper Deck. I can be contrarian and those two sets were never my favorites when I was buying packs during that time. (Didn't even see '89 UD).   So I'm listing seven of my faves for posterity. Why seven? Because I consider the junk wax era to have lasted seven years, 1987-93. I can't comfortably squeeze 1986 and 1994 into that span, based on my experience of that time. Here is a very quick run through. 1. 1993 Upper Deck: You should know this by now. I'm writing a blog about it and everything . I don't kn...

I watched the "Jack of All Trades" baseball card documentary on Netflix yesterday. I didn't think I'd like it, but it turns out it was pretty good. It's far from perfect. But the complaints that "it isn't really a baseball card movie" are kind of pointless. Of course it isn't. Who could make money off of a movie that is about nothing but baseball cards? Anyway, it was interesting to look inside the hobby a little and to reminisce about that junk wax period that is now over 25 years old! One of the things mentioned repeatedly in the documentary is how everybody during that period was trying to get rich. Collectors, dealers, card companies. And one theory on how to do that back then was just to produce more . More of everything. More stores. More cards. More sets. Definitely more sets. It's 1992 now in the "Best Set of the Year" series and we're up to 12 sets that I have to analyze. I cried about having to review nine s...

A little while ago, I received a package from fellow supertrader Adam of Infield Fly Rule . It's so good to have a destination again for all my spare Rockies cards (and all Rockies cards are spares). In that package, I came across two different topics that I wanted to discuss. The first is how nostalgia can pop up in the strangest places and with the strangest cards. For me, the most nostalgic cards, by far, are cards from the 1970s. So many memories and pleasant card moments from that decade. Cards from other eras hold some nostalgia, too, but I would never expect junk wax cards to produce many fuzzy moments, particularly anything from the early '90s. Those were not great cards, nor great times. So how do I explain the rush of feelings I received when I saw these cards come out of the package?: 1990 Score? Why in the world would anyone get melty over that set? Well, every time I see a few 1990 cards grouped together I am immediately transported to a small colle...

It's about that time of year when I begin to figure out who I will be cheering for in the postseason. I only do this when the Dodgers are out of it. And I think it's safe to say that the Dodgers are out of it, despite Ted Lilly's best efforts. I haven't had to do this since 2007 when L.A. finished in fourth place (a position they know well this year). But I think my choice of teams to root for have changed since then. Traditionally, I pick a team or two from the National League as my favorites. There are teams contending right now that I usually like. I'm referring to the Cardinals and the Phillies. But I don't think I can root for the Cardinals this year. As stupid as Brandon Phillips was to say the things he did when he did, he's kind of right. The Cardinals are annoying in that bitchy kind of way. And I totally blame La Russa. So, they're out. The Phillies are out, too. They have broken Dodgers fans hearts way too many times over the last co...

Way back when , I wrote a tribute to horizontal cards. In it, I said I'd break the tribute into two parts -- the pre-1992 cards that I displayed in that post, and the 1992-present cards that I said I would write in Part 2 sometime in the future. Well, months went by and Part 2 is one of the many, many ideas, promises, commitments and vows to be a better man that escaped from my brain during that period. I'm not here to pick up my forgotten vow to be a better man. But I am here to continue my look at horizontal baseball cards. Aren't you lucky. The thing about post 1991 horizontal cards is there are SO MANY of them. After a gap of 15 years without a single horizontal player card, Upper Deck opened the door for card companies to issue as many horizontal cards as they wanted. Soon after, just about every set featured sideways rectangular photographs. But for me, even though there's a lot of horizontal pics, it hasn't gotten old. In fact, if you'll remembe...