Night Owl Cards

  You guys probably know Jay, from the blog Card Hemorrhage . A couple of weeks ago I received an email from him informing me that he was getting out. He said the hobby hadn't stuck for him and he was looking for advice on the best way to sell off his collection. He sent along a list of his inventory, and I did my best to give him a plan of attack. But before he started selling his cards to complete strangers, I swung a deal for one item on his list. I'm now the owner of a complete, and pristine, 1981 Kellogg's 3-D set. This set gives me a run of complete Kellogg's sets from 1976 through 1982 and it's the second one I've "completed" this year (I don't know if buying a whole set in one shot can technically be considered "completing"). It's fired me up enough that I've started looking around again -- a little bit -- at pre-1976 Kellogg's cards. But I don't expect to do a lot there for quite awhile. The '81 Kellogg's

I've got a couple Target gift cards to spend, which means finding a modern card product that will be a satisfactory rip without annoying me too much.   Scrolling through the available options, obviously I discounted the many Panini products available -- there was annoyance just looking at those boxes on the screen. I also scrapped any Topps flagship and that includes Update, just nothing there that's exciting. The possibility of trade bait is pretty low, too. I narrowed it down to two choices very quickly: Allen & Ginter and Archives. Now, I have enough for two blasters. So I could select one of each. It's my first time opening either of them, so I'd find enjoyment in both. But maybe I should buy two of one and scrap the other. I can find good reasons for doing that, too. So I'm asking you to help me decide. Get one of each? Get two A&G boxes? Get two Archives boxes? Here are the plusses and minuses of each product according to my box-opening emotions: ALLEN

  Greetings on Black Friday. For the first time ever, I may or may not have taken advantage of an online Black Friday card sale. I also may or may not have purchased a black card as part of a Black Friday card sale. I'm writing this in advance so this is all speculation. I have big plans. They often don't come to pass. But with that particular breakthrough on my part -- if it actually did happen -- I thought I'd do a quick Black Friday-themed post and show off what I consider some of the best efforts to present black on cards. Black cards are almost always appealing to me. It's difficult to see how you can go wrong. But there have been examples of ho-hum black cardboard (see: most Bowman efforts). I've pulled some of the black cards that I like the best from my collection (they're all Dodgers, sorry) and arranged them into tiers, third-string, second-string and first-string. I could have added a fourth-string, but there's company in the house and that would

  My Dodgers team set order for 2022 Update arrived in record time the other day. I swear I had barely pressed "go to checkout" when it arrived at my door. The one card I was looking forward to the most was Tyler Anderson, as he was the most-efficient surprise of the Dodgers' season. But true to the pace that MLB operates at now, Anderson had already shed his Dodgers uniform for an inferior Angels one by the time I got my first Tyler Anderson Dodgers card. I can't help but think that Anderson's quick move to that other L.A. team came about because Dave Roberts removed him too quickly in the key Game 4 of the NLDS against the Padres. Anyway, something was up to make him move on almost immediately. But that's the rate of MLB transactions these days. Anderson isn't the only one no longer on the Dodgers in Topps' so-called "Update" set. Hanser Alberto's option was not picked up by the Dodgers, which means he can sign elsewhere. It's possi

  Last night I finally put together the list of non-baseball players who have a card in this year's Allen & Ginter set, an annual tradition that I update on the sidebar every year. I'll get to that sidebar list in a day or two, but the cold, hard truth is sitting in front of me in ink and paper. (EDIT: The 2022 list is now added! ) Let's get the good part out of the way first. There are 48 cards of non-baseball players in the 2022 A&G set. That is the most in an Allen & Ginter set since 2013 when there was also 48. If you toss out "Places or Things" cards that appeared in past A&G sets (there are none of those in this year's set for the third year in a row), the 2022 set has the most non-baseball people of any A&G set ever! That's cool for those of us who buy A&G for more than the ballplayers. Now, the not-so-cool part is what I've been complaining about for A&G for at least the last seven years: the non-baseball players in

  The latest edition of Beckett Vintage Collector is out and the December/January issue should be on newsstands by the end of the month if it's not there already. Mine showed up early last week and it's notable for me because I have not one but two articles in the edition. That's right, you get two night owl writings for the price of one! This came as a bit of a surprise to me, although I filed both articles at relatively the same time so I figured it was a possibility. The first article, on page 59, highlights the all-too-brief 1979 Topps Comics issue. It's a short review of the set. This one-and-done item has fascinated me for a long time and I'm happy to have the complete set. The second article starts on page 78 and closes out the magazine (You remember when SI would put its big feature at the end? That was so cool!). The article is about the 1952 Topps set and how it still resonates with collectors 70 years after it was issued. To demonstrate, I recount my rel