It's too dark

 

Kind of an odd thing for a night owl to squawk about, but it's another absolutely dismal winter day. I'm not used to this. Snow brightens up the surroundings here, but this rain (enough with the downpours already), gray skies and wind remind me of mid-March. If I wanted this weather in the winter I would've flown south already.

While it saves on the heating bill, it's not great for my mood and, as I've crabbed about before, it's lousy for taking pictures of cards.

Natural light is your friend, every photographer knows that. But all I've got in weather like this is the bathroom, which is the most well-lit room in the house.

So in order to brighten things up even more, I selected some '70s cards to show. The 1970s were wonderful for that. Love their loud ways dearly.

Johnny's Trading Spot sent me some 1971 Fleer Laughlin World Series cards off my want list (the '71s are the gray backs and also have the MLB logo on the front). These cards are as bright as they come.

The photo above was taken a few days ago, on a much brighter day. I should have prepped my post that day instead of this day. I always have to write these things at the last minute.

 

So, there are the cards again, on the bathroom hamper. I suppose this will do.

The '71 set is interesting to me in that some of the same illustrations, as well as the same year and logo treatment, were used for the Fleer Baseball Stickers from 1980, which I bought that year from the family deli that was on our way to the drug store around the corner that also sold cards (that's what it was like back in the day collectors, two small shops six buildings apart selling cards). The stickers were sold in packs of their own since Fleer was still a year away from issuing its own set with player photos.

So I know a lot of the '71 illustrations well, from 1980, but anything prior to 1940 is new to me because the '80 stickers didn't go back farther than the 1940 Series.

 

Speaking of the 1940 Series, there's one of the differences between the '71 set and the '80 stickers. The 1980 sticker shows the team that actually won the Series. The '71 sticker is more interesting. Shutout after dad dies??? I didn't know that story. That's Laughlin for ya, giving the knowledge.

Most of the other side-by-sides show the same image on both the '71s and the '80 stickers. But there is one notable difference. The stickers add the number of games that each team won.

I've kind of been slacking on obtaining the '70 and '71 Fleer sets, I don't know why. Nobody seems to care about them and everything except the rarities are not too expensive. I should get back to that right away. I did write a magazine article on the guy who drew them so need to show some respect.

All right, that's all I have on this miserable weather day. The heating bill may be lower but the electric bill sure is growing.