OK, so it's actually not a card

I tried to start this post on the new "mobile-friendly" Blogger that is coming our way, like it or not, very soon.

I didn't do very well.

So if you see my posts dwindle down to once a week near the end of June, you'll know why.

Anyway ...

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I purchased a 1977 Topps Venezuelan card after an emailed head's up from a blog reader, Mike. I was so excited to come across a Cey card that I didn't have that I ordered the card directly through my email on my phone, without bothering to change the name notation.

That explains why an envelope from someone I had never communicated with before came addressed to "Night Owl". I wonder if the seller thought, "what's up with this guy?"

When the card arrived, I knew right away that it wasn't a card.

It was a sticker.

That's it right there. You can see the differences between the Venezuelan sticker and the actually 1977 Topps card. The Cey sticker doesn't have a bottom border. It also lists the set number -- 171 -- on the front of the sticker.

There's another difference, too:

The sticker is much shorter than the American Topps card.

It turns out that Venezuelan cards were a thing until about 1972 and then much of the cards were replaced by stickers during the 1970s.

I didn't know that. But now I know that most of the Venezuelan items that look like the '77 Topps set are actually stickers. The '77 Venezuelans are weird in that winter league players are combined with major league players in one set. The winter league players get their own design while the MLBers are mostly on the '77 Topps design. Oh, and some of the winter league players are actually cards, not stickers . Confused? Yup, me, too.

The sticker itself is paper-thin, quite flimsy.

The back is blank, because, duh, it's a sticker.

Apparently sticker albums were available and the spots where the stickers were to be stuck contained text about the individual player. The stickers were glued on the back at only the top, so once the sticker was stuck, the collector could lift up the sticker from the bottom and read the text.

It's not a card, but it's quite the novelty item and I'm thrilled to own it.

And you better believe I'll be adding it to my list of Ron Cey CARDS.