Nonsense Newsletter No. 164: The NL West, Valentine's Day, uncut sheets and so much more!
Welcome lovers to this special Valentine’s Day edition of the Nonsense Newsletter. In this week’s installment John Dudley and I share the love of the hobby with each of you, and we do it with gratitude and joy! In this week’s edition, John Dudley dives into baseball with a look at the NL West. I, on the other hand, get all sentiment and gushy on this Valentine’s Day. And, of course, your crush on the Quick Hits section can continue because it’s a beautiful section once again. So, grab the flowers and a that heart-shaped box of chocolates and enjoy this love-filled edition of the Nonsense Newsletter.
By John McTaggart
Well, I can’t ignore the fact it’s Valentine’s Day.
In fact, I’m way too much of a hopeless romantic to ever think of doing such a thing.
So, let’s give all this love I have inside some direction and talk about the flames I fan for this hobby.
Instead of just creating a list of cards I love (kinda boring, I know, and done one-million times before, I’m sure), I’m going to answer some romantic, Valentine’s Day/love-themed questions.
Don’t be shy about answering these questions in the chat yourself, either! It could be fun and romantic, people!
By John Dudley
Topps Series 1 is out, and that means baseball season is just around the corner. I’ve found my passion for baseball growing over the past few seasons, and I’m more excited for this one than any since I was a kid. I’ve done baseball previews the last two years, but this year, I want to give each division their own week. That means six weeks of baseball previews. I hope you’ll indulge me a bit as I wax poetic about the upcoming 2025 MLB season for a rather extended period of time.
I’m starting with the NL West as most articles move east to west, and I want to avoid coastal bias by hitting the west divisions when I’m just starting this series and still goofily excited.
Quick Hits
Hobby News- It’s the Hobby New Year! That’s what I call the release of Topps Series 1 every year. This year’s design is lovely. Prices continue to creep upwards for Flagship products with Jumbo boxes retailing at $180. Topps is at least continuing to up the quality with a variety of sharp-looking cards including a revamped, and much rarer, All Aces design that is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
Vintage- It’s always been a dream of mine to have a framed uncut sheet of treading cards hanging in my office. Well, I suppose I, and others, can make that happen if I want to spend five-figures on the sheet. There’s a super cool one, a 1960 basketball uncut sheet, up for auction now. Read more about it here.
Hobby News- If you’ve been sleeping on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, you might have missed your shot at getting his cards at a great price. SGC has been on a tear with multiple 50-point games and his cards are responding. His Card Ladder Index is up 44% over the last week.
Hobby News- A few weeks ago I bemoaned the loss of the traditional Topps Black parallels. I said at the time that "I’d like to see it return in Series 2 and for Topps to put Series 1 Black parallels in Update to rectify the situation, but my guess is that we’ll just have some bummed veteran collectors." Well, my hopes have won out and we won't have bummed collectors. Topps indeed is putting the axed Series 1 Black parallels into Series 2. It's great news and a wonderful sign that Topps will listen to the collectorate. Well done Topps!
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