Night Owl Cards

  On the schoolyard in the spring of 1977, there was no card I wanted more than the one of George Foster. I was a Dodgers fan and on the lookout for Dodgers cards, but even a player on the Dodgers' chief rival at the time could not prevent me from coveting his card.   Foster was hitting home runs at a pace that I had never experienced before, on his way to 52 in one season. His card was the titan of the '77 set, bigger than airbrushed Reggie, bigger than prospects Dawson and Murphy (who?), bigger than Fidrych, bigger than Nolan Ryan. Foster's card was a base card. Yet, it had major appeal. That concept and sentiment is lost in today's hobby and vanished a long time ago. Foster's cool was replaced by inserts, first known as "chase cards," and then "hits" and then parallels and then short-prints. All detracted from the base cards, the cards that actually made up the set. I was reminded of how much the hobby and collectors have changed again this mo...

  Bowman's been out for a couple of weeks, I guess, I don't know -- I barely pay attention to the product -- and has been enjoying its darling status as the latest and greatest. Of course, you couldn't find Bowman in stores even before sports cards were removed from retail shelves because this is the kind of product that draws the "investors," get-rich-quick dreamers and, yeah, some scammers, too. Isn't that a nice legacy for Bowman? Bowman didn't used to attract that kind of customer, of course. It was once the primary card brand in the land, along with Topps, and produced some pretty nice sets in the first half of the 1950s. But today it's all about prospects and guys I've never heard of and I think the biggest issue I have with it is: it's not a complete baseball card. Think about it. What is the drawing point for a Bowman card? Why do people buy it? They buy it for the name. Sure there needs to be a picture, but what they are seeking is the...

For awhile there, I was a bit miffed over the reaction to Tuesday's post. I'm aware that there aren't as many set collectors as there once was and especially on the blogs it seems to be a very rare breed -- much rarer than it once was. But I expected more than one person to be at least a little amazed by the different path to putting a set in order by card number, especially since all I ever heard from set collectors prior was there's just that one way to skin a cat. I should know by now that there is no guarantee when it comes to blog comments. But I think this is the new normal. Everything on the blogs is down these days: comments, views, number of posts by other bloggers, trades, cards arriving in the mail from other bloggers, just general enthusiasm for the card blogging life, down, down, down, down. The interesting thing is that I've noticed the latest downturn (there have been several over the last eight years or so) within the last year. If you go ...

Can you see that? You probably know what it is, even if it's difficult to see. That's a security tag. You can find them in random packs of baseball cards. They're about the worst kind of "hit" ever created. One of these was in a pack of Heritage that I bought last week. It caused the security alarm to go off as I exited Target. I hate that, because even though I don't bother to stop and turn around after the bell goes off, and no security guard comes running after me, and everyone seems to know that those things ring for random, innocuous reasons, I still feel like someone, somewhere thinks I'm getting away with something, like I'm shoplifting, like I'm a common criminal. Security devices are familiar instruments used by department stores in loss prevention, and employees are forever removing them from clothes, etc. But I don't know why they're still in baseball card packs. The majority of baseball card packs cost between $2 and $6...

There are literally double-digit reasons for me not to buy Topps Heritage this year. Let's see if I can spell them out: 1. I'm not crazy about the 1964 design. It's better than '61, '66 and '68, but that's not saying much. I'm not a fan of many '60s card designs and color choices. 2. There are four Dodgers in the 426-500 SP set. Four. Of star players, too. The SP set is one of the most annoying things about Heritage even when I have to chase only one or two SPs of my favorite team. But four? So uncool. 3. The minis. The mini-lover is mini'd out. Heritage and minis do not go together at all. I don't want to see them coming out of my Heritage packs. 4. Last year's fiasco. The online-only High Number set in particular. That soured me on Heritage and modern cards in general. 5. My commitment to vintage. How can I stay focused on vintage if I keep buying new cards? 6. Rumors of inferior card stock. After last year's Heri...