Night Owl Cards

  Since I don't prioritize autographs in my collection, I don't have a lot of them that aren't Dodgers.   The ones I do have sit in the back of my autograph binder, filled with 99 percent Dodger scribbles. There are a handful of Bills and Sabres scribbles, too.   But those autographs have meaning, too, and every once in awhile I will come across one that I need to include in my collection.   One of those times happened yesterday. I went to the monthly card show -- I'll have a post all about it tomorrow. The last card I picked up there was an autograph card. I saw it at the first table I was at -- and I told myself that if I still had money left and the card was still there -- I'd add it on my way out the door.   And that's what I did.   I had to -- it's The Mad Hungarian! This is one of the exceptions. Al Hrabosky is from my early days as a fan. I remember seeing him when the Cardinals played the Mets in the mid-to-late 1970s. Hrabosky, as you may know or h...

I have a feeling there will be more than two of these "Spot the Difference" posts, judging by the reaction to the first one. There were lots of responses to my last post on this topic, both in the comments and on Twitter, with additional examples of cards that feature design color elements that don't jive with the design colors used with fellow teammates. I thought I'd show some of those suggestions here, along with a couple others that I knew about that I didn't show the last time. The 1988 Topps set was mentioned a lot because it featured several color differences and I knew that. The one that gets mentioned the most is the Keith Comstock card, which is actually a variation that was corrected, which is why it received so much attention back in the "error frenzy" of the 1980s. The blue team letters is the correct version and the white team letters is the variation. But enough of that, we're here to find the differences that were n...

The other day on Twitter there was some minor discussion about the same photo of Pirates catching prospect Elias Diaz appearing in both Topps Heritage and on a Panini Donruss autographed card. Another Twitter guy rightly explained that this isn't the first time this has happened and offered up the famous example of the same Rod Carew photo being used in 1982 Topps (the in-action card) and 1982 Fleer. I went a step further and showed the magazine blurb about the Carew card from the old Baseball Cards magazine from the spring of 1982. Have I mentioned how many times I miss that magazine? The scan also included a bit of the next article on the right, with the heading "Collectors Say, 'That's All," and that intrigued a couple of people. In fact, that particular item has been on my mind for awhile as a potential post (I actually addressed the topic once already when I covered that particular edition of the magazine). With what's been going on in new ...

Since I am just a few cards away from finishing off the 1975 Topps minis and the 1972 Topps set must wait until I have cash to throw at high numbers, I need a set-collecting project that I can pursue at a leisurely pace, that won't strain the budget, and that fellow collectors are willing/able to send. That's why I'm chasing down the 1981 Donruss set. This is endlessly amusing to my 15-year-old self, because when the first Donruss set came out that year, it was as if I was buying homemade cards. I can hear myself snorting all the way from 1981. By '81, I had collected Topps and basically nothing but Topps for seven years. Topps was as professional as you could be when it came to card collecting. They knew what they were doing. And their product -- for its time -- was high quality. A large set with adequate photographs, complete stats and an attractive design. No one could do what they did. So when Donruss and Fleer offered sets in 1981, we opened our very fir...