Night Owl Cards

Haven't done one of these for awhile. 1975 Topps mini Ken Reitz: Obviously, I have held on to the rabidly creased Reitz for a long, long, long time. The card came into my possession the first year I started collecting, the very year the card was issued, in 1975. I don't know how it came to be folded 10 times. I'm pretty certain that I didn't do the folding. I'm guessing I acquired the card from a friend in a desperate bid to accumulate every '75 mini that I could find. Condition wasn't a deal-breaker then. If you had the card, you had the card. Appearance was incidental, for the most part. But as the years went on, wrinkly Reitz began to stand out for all the wrong reasons. My other '75 minis from '75 were respectably worn. Rounded corners. Scuffed surfaces. Some minor writing on the back. But they weren't viciously worn like Kenneth. Today, I received a Reitz more in keeping with my collection. It came with a bunch of other ...

This card was on my Nebulous 9 list (which at the moment is a Nebulous 8 list) for a very brief period before I received it in the mail. It was sent to me by mr . haverkamp , who is probably wondering why he sent it to me after my last post/rant against T206. You see, he's collecting the 206 set and I said I'd stay on the lookout for some cards to send his way. But it's kind of hard for me to do that when I refuse to buy it. Oops. Fortunately, I seem to have a habit of buying cards that I have no intention of collecting. It's more than a habit, actually. It's actually an annoying cash-sucking character trait. But it does come in handy in trading. Anyway, back to the card. I believe mr . haverkamp was under the impression that this was the last card I needed to complete the 1977 Topps set. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my bid to upgrade sets of my youth, the '77 set has been totally neglected. I've knocked off '74 and '75 and '78....

1975 Topps mini Tommy Davis The top card is one of the first '75 mini cards I ever saw. It is such an ingrained part of my collecting history that I barely notice what makes the card stand out: the power Afro, the off-center photo, the listed position of something called "Des. Hitter." I barely notice the creases either. If you're keeping count, there is one moving east-west through Davis' Afro. There is one leaning on the left side of his 'fro. There is one bordering his left jawline. There is one just over his right shoulder. And there is one through the "D" in his name. And until I scanned this card, I had forgotten that someone had underlined "Orioles" with a red pen. I'm guessing it was my youngest brother, an Orioles fan, and someone barely of writing age when this card came out. Throw in some surface scratches, scuffing, and rounded corners and that's a card whose best years are long gone. But I've recently acquired a ...

1976 Topps Mike Kekich Here is Mr. Kekich, in keeping with the spirit of today's post on the other blog . The tattered version, with the torn top edge, came out of some sort of magazine. I wish I remembered what magazine or exactly how the card was featured. I think it was two cards together printed on something that looked like a magazine subscription card, which you tore out of the magazine. The cardboard is the same as any other baseball card. But the tearing out of the magazine would explain the shredded top of the card. It has bothered me all these years. So, I am happy that I could upgrade it. Sadly, I don't have any fascinating story for the upgraded card. And that's why I almost always keep the older card -- because that older card tells a better story than the newer card. And that's my story about swapping cards of a guy who swapped wives. Except, unlike Kekich, I kept both cards. I wouldn't recommend keeping both wives. Or even swapping wives. Uh ... I...

1967 Topps Joe Moeller. Yes, I still have the beat-up version. (Inspiration).