Night Owl Cards

  A couple weeks ago reports came out that Panini America is looking to sell. While this barely causes me to shrug my shoulders, considering its output in the baseball market the last 15 years, it's concerning in another way.   One of the most interested parties in buying Panini is Topps/Fanatics. Topps is interested in Panini's global reach and this would fit right in with Fanatics' desire for world domination. While a sale to Topps would allow some of the brands that Panini made that didn't meet my expectations -- stuff like Donruss and Diamond Kings -- to be retooled into looks I might like better (i.e. have team logos), it also carries the potential for Topps to continue its lazy treatment of many of its sets ... or not publish them at all, as seems to be Fanatics' way.   But what Panini was doing with baseball sets certainly didn't interest me, so it mostly gets a shrug.   I haven't purchased a pack of Panini-whatever in a good long time. The last time ...

  I think I'm on record on my opinion of Panini as a baseball product. I've never had use for it, think its weak points are glaring and its strong points -- if there are any -- help convince only some collectors that it's worth buying. Panini's license with the MLB Players Association ran out at the end of 2022 and we all know it already doesn't have an MLB license. So Panini is out of the baseball card game and, well, let me take a moment to figure out how I still type while I'm standing and applauding. Panini's baseball cards were ugly, uninteresting, inept and inefficient. The only thing it did well, the 2013 Hometown Heroes product, disappeared after a year. The only other thing it did "well," Chronicles, is a mix of boring (see card above) and a whole lot of WTF. It's good WTF, for the most part, but it actively defies you to complete it, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do here. Panini's baseball inserts got a lot of pr...

Look back on my blog six or seven years ago and you'll see a couple of posts wondering what the point is of Panini cards.   The cards contained no team logos nor words on the uniforms. The designs were primitive, ugly even. The photos lacked imagination and looked the same from one to the next. I berated Panini for robbing collectors of their money. I look back on those Panini cards in my collection and they still suck. And I still have some of the same feelings about Panini's baseball cards. The inability to show MLB logos creates boring, unappealing cards. Panini's card backs remain unreadable and useless. Yet, Panini's baseball sets continue to this day and remain popular in some collector circles. What's more is I am more accepting of those cards in my collection. I also seem to get more Panini cards from other collectors than I did a few years ago. I came up with a few reasons why the change: 1. Panini continues to be the only "other" option: Ever sin...

I love this card so much that I bumped it up in the received card package rotation -- setting off all of my OCD bells and alarms in the process -- to feature it here. It arrived from the Junior Junkie , get a good look because I probably won't feature the rest of his cards until your favorite NFL team's season is left for dead (sorry, it's the ROTATION, man). As you can see, it is a rookie card of Eric Karros -- presented by a sausage company. I have plenty of food issue cards. Hell, I have food issue cards from sausage companies. I adore them all. But this one struck a chord in a way that it has never been struck before. Sure, I've often wondered why I give these particular non-licensed cards a pass while I practically spit on Panini's non-licensed offerings. But this time I thought "what the hell is wrong with me? Why do I love these so much and hate Panini's so much? Am I THAT particular? Am I THAT fickle?" And I determined rather quickly...