Night Owl Cards

  I tend to underestimate the size and depth of my collection. When someone says I should set up a table at a show to sell cards, I instantly scoff. I could never have enough cards that could interest people enough to buy them!   That's the way I'm built. I'm not a natural boaster and generally feel inadequate much of the time (though I'm getting better the older I get). I always assume others have more/are better. And that's the way it is in the card world, too.   None of that's true, though. I've been receiving cards from people around the world for more than a decade. It's obvious I have a collection that is both impressive and unique. But I also know there are people out there with far more cards, far more impressive cards, far more expensive cards than me.   I don't know any of those people, I don't think. The one collector that I know who comes close to that -- in my mind anyway -- is Johnny of Johnny's Trading Spot . He's the only ...

  Here you go, 2021 card collectors and companies, your cautionary year.   By 1994, card sets readily available to collectors had eclipsed 30 different kinds with various off-shoots and variations, demonstrating the company tricks that are still employed today. Collecting was no longer about the base set in '94 as "the chase" had become the thing and inserts and parallels exploded in content and popularity that year.   The hobby never seemed healthier or more vibrant. Then the baseball strike hit.   Fans left the game in droves and collectors walked away, partly due to the strike but also because the new direction of the hobby -- way too many sets to pursue -- didn't make sense to those used to the old way of collecting.   I was one of those who left in 1994. I collected some Topps, a few packs. That was it. By '96, I couldn't tell you a single thing that was happening in the hobby.   Those who remained, primarily kids who were just starting out in collecti...

As someone who began collecting baseball cards in 1975, I am adamant that it was the best year to pick up that hobby. And, in general, I've proclaimed the '70s as the greatest year for a kid (or anyone, really) to start buying packs. People who also started collecting in the '70s have raised their fists in agreement to my very biased proclamations, and we all feel good about ourselves for an hour or two. But was 1975 really the best year to begin collecting? Didn't other years have cool cards and sets, too? Didn't other years have cool hobby situations? Of course they did. Some of those years may not be my bag but, sure, objectively, there were other great years to begin a cardboard obsession. So I looked through the past 65 years and came up with a few in which it would be heaven to begin collecting that year. If you started collecting these years, there is probably a terrific chance that you would be hooked for life. That's how good the card situation...

Well that was a lot of excitement over nothing, huh? Nobody outside of the long deceased are headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. Enjoy counting those tourist dollars this summer, Cooperstown. Might want to tweak your rules, Hall. But enough about that. Cards are what are most important here, not some stuffy museum. And the more colorful the cards, the better from this bird's view. I just added the 2001 Upper Deck Decade 1970s set to my want list this evening. I know I shouldn't be contributing anything more to that monstrous thing. I believe it was this blogger who said he sees a lot of cards on this blog but the want list doesn't ever seem to grow smaller. It's a curse, believe me. But as far as set completion goes, I'm in need of something to add to my 1972 and 1977 Topps chasing.  And this set fits perfectly with what I collect. The Upper Deck Decade '70s set (what an awkward name, by the way) is a semi-blatant rip-off of the 1975 Topps...