Night Owl Cards

Topps loves to rehash its old designs and it knows faithful collectors like me will eat it up because they grew up with Topps and they love the old designs (better than the new designs). But I will eat only so much. I know when I'm full (kind of). Topps is forever riffing off its old designs in Archives and insert cards like the one above, sent to me by Cards On Cards recently, and yes, there is a blue-bordered parallel of this '85 Koufax on COMC right now. Even though I adore colored-border parallels, I'll take my reverence only so far. Much of what Archives produces and those inserts yield, I can take or leave. But when it comes to Heritage, and doing border stuff with old designs, that's when it gets serious. I started to become aware of Heritage creating colored border parallels in 2011. The black-border parallels were part of retail blister packs and they were all the rage. Although Heritage chrome black borders were a thing prior to 2011, the 2011...

I don't want to be on of those collectors who can only criticize Topps. There is no productivity in that. When Topps does something right, I want to acknowledge it. Here is what I want to acknowledge: Topps has improved its game in almost everything it has released so far this year. The flagship set is much better. Opening Day, for those of you who care, is also better all around. I won't say the same for Heritage because I'm still annoyed about the cardboard and even more annoyed by who is in the SPs this year. But overall, much better. The area where it's an across-the-board route is with the parallels. The retail red and blue (and purple) parallels are vastly better than last year's. The pink and camo are a nice touch (not that I'll see any). The emerald sparkle is a million times better than the gold sparkle. And the traditional gold parallels are back in the base set where they belong. In Opening Day, the blue sparkle things are better than the drab...

Every year at this time, I kind of wander aimlessly through the card aisle. I never have very much money between August and December. That fact, combined with the tail end of the card collecting season, leaves me uninspired when purchasing new product. Mostly, I turn toward vintage and team-set efforts at this time. But there's always a part of me that MUST have something to rip periodically. Despite my aimlessness, I manage to find something each year at this time that piques my interest that didn't necessarily interest me the first time around. This year it's Topps Heritage blister packs. Yeah, I'm a sucker for the black borders. I've grabbed a few, not too many. But it's re-ignited my interest in the overall Heritage set. I know I disparaged 2012 Heritage when it first came out because I'm not crazy about the 1963 Topps design. But here's the thing: when you stack it up against what else is out there -- Topps base (uninspired design on super-...