Night Owl Cards

  I don't know about you other card bloggers, but my laptop desktop is jam-packed at this time of year.   Because I never think to compartmentalize with folders, I've got tiny images all over the place, most of which are for the end-of-the-year extravaganza post coming up. The rest are for the latest edition of the 1975 Topps worst-to-best countdown.   I debuted this countdown last April and with this episode I will have hit the halfway point of the countdown. At the rate I'm going, this will finish up sometime next summer. Normally I'd groan at that thought, but this is the 1975 Topps set! I'd be happy to write about it every day if I could come up with brand new topics each time.   So here is the last '75 countdown of the year, next year we'll start getting to the really good stuff.     340. Nelson Briles (card 495) An enormously pleased Briles livens up a typical pitching pose. I also like the Royals in the distance and how the team name up top matches w...

  All right, the previous post I showed you cards that came into the home for the holiday that didn't exactly fit my collection. That post went over like a palette of 1990 Donruss.   So here are some cards that have been arriving around the holiday that are much more style. Yes, that's right, "more incoming cards." You'll just have to suck it up. The other posts I'm working on aren't ready yet. There are more people in the house at this time of year, you know. I have to pay attention to them. I'm anti-social enough, how bad would it be if I just shut myself into my room with my laptop and cards?   These cards specifically came with holiday wishes from reader Dana, who traditionally sends cards around this time. He also sent the Mookie up top but I landed that card just before this envelope arrived. Appreciate the thought though. The most important card is the Campy, which completed the Dodgers team set for 2022 Gallery for me.   The next holiday envelo...

  As far as card-opening experiences go, my Christmas this year wasn't as great as last year . Last year was tough to beat for sure. This year, my sister-in-law did not come through with the complete set of 2023 flagship after doing so the previous two years. She's amazingly consistent with her gift-giving so I'm assuming she couldn't find it at her nearby big box.  Instead, along with the binder and pages she always gets me, she got a hanger of 2023 Heritage. That's right up my alley, but I'm down to the final three cards I need, so all that produced was a Daylight Savings Time insert. That brings me to the dueling Allen & Ginter blasters, one from my daughter and one from her boyfriend. I put A&G on my Christmas list. Unfortunately, it was the only brand of cards I put on my list. I am required to get my list out in October due to a certain early shopper and at the time A&G was the desired product. But in the weeks that followed, I lost my interest...

  Merry Christmas, readers. This Christmas season has rushed by, as it often does, but it seems like it found another gear this year and suddenly the cookies aren't made, the decorations are haphazard and I haven't watched a single, obligatory Christmas special. So I think it would behoove me if I made a holiday post right now to remind me what I should be doing. Then again I write a holiday post every year, so I'll stop babbling. This year I'm ranking the Santa Claus cards in the 2007 Topps Santa Claus set. Do you all remember that set? It seemed to come out of nowhere and I have barely paid attention to it since, mostly because it showed up when I didn't know what was going on in modern cards ("it's just Topps and Upper Deck flagship, right?") The boxes, which originally sold for $9.99, contained 16 base cards and a Santa relic card and Santa autograph. Per usual, I don't care about the hits (they're not really hits, you guys -- I saw one vid...