Sunday Edition

"Get off my lawn!"

I'm thirty six years old.  I've never yelled at a neighborhood kid to get off my lawn.  I don't feel old, or out of touch, but I find myself thinking young kids are getting dumber on regular basis.  Which is probably just a sign that I'm getting older (though I don't think there's any question today's music sucks).

However, I do have a Twitter account.  And even if I think Twitter is pretty stupid, populated primarily by idiots and mean spirited losers, and disparage it as "Tweeter," I still have an account and can't deny that I check it daily, and send "Twits" on a near daily basis.  So how old can I be?  In any event, it was on Twitter that I first started hearing chatter about "Topps Now."  For the most part, I do very good job at ignoring everything beyond the base set, with some curiosity for Heritage and Archives.  The "Topps Now" talk though became enough that I decided to google it, and I can't say I like what I found.  Really?  Really, Topps?  And even more so, really fellow collector's?  You're paying for this crap?

I would not be at all surprised to learn that I'm the last one to this party, but as refresher, here are some screen grabs to explain what "Topps Now" is:

Bullshit.  I'm a passionate fan, and a passionate fan of Topps, and the only thing I've provided feedback for is repeated demands that they bring back my gum.  Who is asking for more of this?  If a card looks like it came out of a cereal box, then it should come out of a cereal box.  But whatever, if people want to pay a buck or two for a handful of these, who am I to tell them not to throw their money away.

What?  Ten dollars for this?  I'm sorry, have you people lost your minds?  I see stuff like this, and it reaffirms my decision to not look into what exactly those virtual/Internet/whatever cards are.  If they're seriously just a jpeg file for an online photo album, I think it would be too much for me to handle.  As a collector, we're all lumped in together by the masses, and stuff like this, doesn't help the negative stereotypes about us.

Look I don't mean to tell you how to spend your money, ultimately, this is an individual hobby, and if these things scratch that itch we're all trying to scratch, then go for it.  They're just not for me.  Over the last year or so, I've been making a much more concentrated effort on completing the Topps base sets.  In theory, all of them from '52-'91.  My current focus has been on the '70  set  (with my ongoing 1952 efforts).  I'm not sure how '70 ended up being my current focus after completing '75 about six months ago, it was pretty scatter shot across the decade for awhile, but that's the set that has emerged as my primary focus ('72 is on deck).  This week, I scratched a pretty big 1970 itch:

Four of the more expensive remaining needs off of my 1970 need list.  Each of which I picked up for less than the price of that Corey Kluber.  Again, I'm not telling you how to spend your money, but I'd put anyone of these for up to the old "Pepsi Challenge" with that Kluber.  And with the arrival of these four, I took my red sharpie to my checklist book, a bizarrely satisfying exercise:

My 1970 Topps effort now seis at about 72% complete, with mostly high numbers remaining.  If your interested in trading me any of the remaining cards on those list above let me know, I have a good number of doubles from 1970-91 Topps.

While I'm showing off recent ebay pick-ups, here are a few more, each of which came in at under the price of a "Topps Now" card (the '52 Monty Irvin was the only one even close at $8.80).  There's a '51 Bowman in there too.  I've been trying to avoid vintage Bowman and just focus on Topps the last year or so, but that Catiglione reminded me of the '51 Mays (one of my all-time wants that'll probably never have) and I loved the pine trees, so I splurged and dropped $2.25 even though there's no number in my book to cross out in red sharpie.

Ultimately, I guess Topps Now actually helps vintage buyers like myself.  The fewer of us there are, the less we'll have to pay.  Because Topps can't just print up more of it tomorrow, the way they literally brag about doing with "Topps Now."