Night Owl Cards

The other day, I was reading the fascinating SABR Baseball Cards blog post by Andrew Aronstein on a pivotal meeting of baseball card collectors 50 years ago. It was the precursor to annual baseball card conventions, I suppose, but on a much smaller scale. The total number of attendees fell well below the current CDC guidelines for crowds in our virus-ridden world. Photos accompanied this great historic post and the most interesting thing about those pictures was how well-dressed the attendees were. Every person showed up in a suit-and-tie or at least a sport coat. Can you imagine that happening today? The clothing choices of current baseball card show goers alarms me nearly every visit. Find something without stains, buddy. The post was another reminder of how life was a bit more formal a half a century ago. Another example comes from baseball cards. I mentioned on this post (in fact, this entire post is a continuation of the theme of that post) that Topps used to include ...

It's November, so I've begun transitioning 2019 cards to their ... um ... final resting place. That means taking them from the stacks of 2019 cards that have built up on my card desk since last winter and moving them to boxes or binders. Spoiler alert: only sets that I particularly enjoy get the binder treatment and none of the 2019 cards will see the inside of a binder. I always start with 2019 cards that I know I will not purchase again in a moment of weakness in the retail aisle. And, sadly, because I do love the brand, Heritage is getting that box treatment right now. While inventorying what I have of '19 Heritage, I discovered something that I hadn't noticed, nor had read anyone mentioning: 2019 Heritage marks the return of full names on the backs of Heritage cards. Topps has displayed the full names of players on the backs of their cards during two distinct periods: 1952-57 and then the early 1970s -- 1970, and after a two-year break, 1973-75. That me...