As I suspect many readers understand, this business of blogging is a learning process for me, which has resulted in my spending more and more time in the mysterious world of cyberspace, bouncing about from one website to another trying to acclimate myself to something that doesn’t remotely come easily.

   As you might suspect, there are more misses than hits, but I suppose if you can bat .300 or so you’ve done just fine, or if you hit the occasional triple or home run, it’s even better. If you’ve never poked your nose into the Topps Vault (www.theToppsvault.com), I’d urge you to do so, even if it means stopping at the local library to take advantage of their Internet capabilities. (The original photograph from the famed 1959 Topps Symbol of Courage Roy Campanella card is shown at right)

   See, I understand there are readers who don’t have the Internet, an observation that I suppose is a bit goofy when blogged like this to people who presumably do have it. Still, I transfer many of these blogs to the pages of my column in SCD, so the recommendation isn’t nearly as silly as it sounds.

   As the photos here suggest, for the old geezers like me who love SCD and a half century of hobby history, the stuff in the vault is as cool as it gets. Currently, they are offering Topps Archival File Copy trading cards and pages from the binders that Woody Gelman & Co. used to create an historical record of their creations.

   Some of those album pages with two or three cards pasted in to show both the fronts and backs were sold in the famous 1989 Guernsey’s Topps Auction, but hundreds of others were retained in the files. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to go the site and see some of the pages that are currently available (1961 Topps Baseball as I blog this) or the many that have been auctioned on eBay over the past year-plus.

   The website notes: “The Topps team also inserted many of its original file copy cards onto special die-cut pages. These striking cards are free of any staining and present themselves in high-quality condition. The stain-free cards are encapsulated two ways, either as “Authentic” or with an actual BVG numerical grade, i.e. BVG 8. The Topps team archived only one of each stain-free card into the presentation binder and this rarity is identified on the label as 1/1.”

   For many years, Topps used to face criticism, largely justified, for being way to “present focused,” a byproduct of an understandable company mantra that they were creating a product aimed at youngsters. Just as it’s difficult for me to make a transition from a printed-page philosophy to something that accounts for all the confusing stuff that occurs in cyberspace, Topps officials have for many years now understood the adult-orientation to so many of their products – old and new – and adjusted accordingly.

   We both starting to get it.

P.S. Happy 75th birthday, Mr. Aaron.

   Nearly four decades ago, it was more of a novelty for the average sports fan to run into their heroes in public, certainly nothing like today when the dramatic escalation of autograph values has made a big business out of something once reserved for genuine fanatics.

   In 1970, I spotted Oscar Robertson and Bob Dandridge walking along Market Street in San Francisco, and I sort off stalked them for a few blocks without ever pestering them for an autograph or anything else. I was in my Navy uniform, which I mention merely by way of explaining why I was in San Francisco.

   I was a huge Robertson fan, having followed him even since his final days in college, and he was the first hall of famer from any sport that I ever encountered – such as it was – in person. I would have recognized “The Big O” easily anywhere, but it didn’t hurt that the two NBA stars were decked out in duds whose price tag I suspect exceeded my entire net worth at that moment.

   Fast forward a dozen years to Buffalo, N.Y., where Robertson was the featured speaker to open the Empire State Games that year. Games Director Mike Abernethy knew that I was a big Robertson fan, so he asked me if I wanted to pick him up at the hotel and bring him to the Games’ headquarters before the opening ceremonies. It was a rhetorical question.

   I was thrilled to have that opportunity, but in the frantic hours leading up to the 2 p.m. appointment, lots of things went haywire at the press center, which was my responsibility as PR coordinator. Pulled in every direction by reporters, staffers and volunteers, I was running around frantically when I happened to notice the time. It was 2:25 p.m!

   I typically disdain exclamation points, but it’s appropriate here. I was distraught, thinking that I had bungled such an important task and quite possibly pissed off the most important dignitary at that year’s Games. I raced over to his hotel not far from the University of Buffalo-Amherst campus where we held the opening ceremonies and most of the competition.

   There he was standing out front, looking now even more distinguished, possibly now several C-Notes or more on the hoof, adjusted for more than a decade’s worth of inflation (which we had a lot of in the 1970s).

   He jumped into the New York State government vehicle and listened patiently while I apologized as profusely and abjectly as I ever have for anything in my life. He waved all of it away, telling me not to worry about it.

   Though it wouldn’t have seemed possible, I became an even bigger Oscar Robertson fan after that one.

   And I never asked him for an autograph!

   I vaguely remember the first time I saw a Hartland Statue, probably around 1960 or so at a small variety store in northern Wisconsin where my family would spend a week every summer.

   The store had creaky wooden floorboards and elaborate, glass-encased display cases for much of the inventory, and there they were, safely tucked away in those boxes that nowadays can be even more valuable than some of the statues.

   But they were $2 apiece, and that was enough to scare me away, since it represented two months’ allowance. Even though I was mildly intrigued, it was not to be, since the very same store had 1960 Topps Seventh Series. I was a card kid before I was a card guy.

   Our hobby has always had a kind of uneasy relationship with all things of a non-cardboard nature. By the time the hobby took off in the 1980s, the Hartlands were already highly valued by collectors – and they still are today – but the business of making and marketing statues to the hobby has taken curious turns over that span.

   Gartlan Statues made a serious hobby splash in the early 1980s with attractive cereamic statues that also included autographs; the Hartlands were “reprinted,” for lack of a better term; something called Starting Lineups came along – and since went away; and the most significant development of all took place when McFarlane (Nomar statue shown here) arrived and turned the whole business on its ear.

   Those statues aren’t $2 at retail locations, but they might as well be. Selling for anywhere from $6 to $15 or so – more for some of the cleverly contrived variations – the highly realistic and detailed statues represent a bigger bargain than $2 ever did in 1960.

   They may not be as handy to store as a set of 700 cards that can fit into one binder, but it’s hard to think of too many modern “collectibles” that have come along in recent years that measure up to these remarkable pieces.

   The best thing about them may be that the amazingly low prices allows youngsters to treat them as playthings while at the same time get an affordable introduction to the collecting bug. That ought to be applauded by anybody who supports our hobby.