My dad once told me about an English class research paper project from his high school days, where students had to choose from different topics to write about.

One of the stranger topics was “Why doorknobs don’t have hair.” Yes, it is possible to write 500 words on why that is true, and that was 40 years before AI was a thing. It was proof that someone could take the blandest subject and make something interesting out of it.

Did you know that’s also true for sports cards? You can take a random sports card and try to stretch out interesting information about them. This is an interesting subject these days because of the current nature of the sports card hobby: Making money, slabbing everything for a superior conditional grade, making money, all of the colors of the rainbow, and did I mention making money?

Sports cards have unique features to them: Card design, photography, player background information and statistics, and any “extras” such as cartoons and production errors. More people are going to remember Glenn Hubbard’s 1984 Fleer baseball “snake card” than, say, his 1986 Donruss simply because of the photo. Pedro Borbon’s 1970 Topps baseball card is more talked about than his 1976 Topps card not just because it’s his rookie card, but because of the cartoon on the back that informs collectors that he enjoys cockfighting in his native Dominican Republic.

Those examples are interesting facts that are seen with two eyes on the pieces of cardboard, but there also are interesting facts about cards that can only be revealed through research. The most common approach is to attach a certain fact about a player to the appropriate card, someone may not know that information upon looking at the card, but can learn more from someone revealing it.

An example of this “factual association” involves the 1977 Topps baseball card of Andy Messersmith, whose contractual situation with the Dodgers and Braves helped usher the age of free agency. Messersmith was a Dodger on his 1976 card and a Brave on his 1977 card. The 1977 card back mentions his historic free agent signing, albeit not identifying its historic significance. Come to think of it, Messersmith’s 1978 Topps card also mentions his free agent signing, but sharing the historical story is best done with the 1977 card because it visually helps the interested person connect with the story.

Curt Flood’s 1970 Topps card, pictured above, has an interesting thing about it: He famously never played for the Phillies. That saga fueled the Messersmith situation.

“Background association” is a more intermediate method of stretching a card’s uniqueness. An example of that is the 2002 Topps Total baseball card of Byung-Hyun Kim, a pitcher for the 2001 Diamondbacks. That card was recently added to my collection. The Diamondbacks faced the Yankees in the 2001 World Series, and Kim was rocked hard by Yankees hitting throughout the series. Very likely (but not officially confirmed) as a joke by the person who put the set’s checklist together (possibly a Yankees fan), Kim’s card was assigned as No. 666 — a number of bad luck.

Topps’ first “666 card” came in the 1970 set with Adolpho Phillips of the Expos. That card came out in packs late in the 1970 baseball season, and as it turned out, Phillips was demoted to the minors for the entire 1971 season. In a rather odd association with the macabre, the checklist card in which that card appears has two versions: an error version with his name spelled as “Adolfo” and the corrected version of it reads “Adolpho.” This was 25 years after World War II, and spelling changes in names were still common then. I don’t need to do any digging to confirm that this was entirely coincidental, and not an alleged prank like the Kim card, but it still has something interesting to it to think about.

There’s also “circumstantial association” with cards. The 1986 White Sox Coca-Cola card of Ken Harrelson is the only card of him depicted as the Sox’s general manager. Lyman Bostock’s 1978 Topps card was released the year of his tragic murder in Gary, Indiana.

Topps team cards provide a wealth of interesting information, with much of it coming to light thanks to recent research from Sports Collectors Daily contributor Roy Carlson. His research can be read online. There’s plenty of “career capper” associations with them, since Topps notoriously did not publish cards of players in a set if they weren’t going to play in a set’s release year. There’s also images of players, coaches and managers in uniforms that are not otherwise seen on other Topps cards (the 1973 Topps Rangers team card is my favorite example: the only one with Ted Williams in a Rangers uniform; and Nellie Fox, too).

My favorite detail when it comes to stretching out a sports card’s “interestingness” is identifying an (invoking the power of three here) “unofficial unofficial unofficial XRC” rookie card. XRC meaning a player’s eXtended rookie card.

Here are some examples:

• One tidbit I learned from Carlson’s research is that the 1980 Topps team card of the Expos has young Tim Raines on it. Raines’ actual rookie cards were released in 1981.

• The 1967 Topps team card of the Mets does not picture, but does mention, Nolan Ryan; one year before his famous rookie card with Jerry Koosman was released in the 1968 set. Ryan pitched for a brief minute during the 1966 season, and his win-loss record is on the card back.

• Ken Griffey Sr.’s 1988 Topps Big card has, like all cards in that set, cartoons on the back. This card mentions Junior by name in one of the cartoons as being a prospect in the Mariners’ minor league system. Junior’s rookie cards are in 1989 sets.

• XRCs were a big thing in the 1980s, and there’s a rather peculiar one of Tom Glavine that is in the 1987 Sportflics Team Previews set. Glavine’s rookie cards came out in 1988. This 1987 card is a single card that has multiple players on it in the same team. This card also is the only MLB card of Glavine to feature him in the former Braves’ uniform design of blue colors.

When you give a collector a reason to have a card, it makes it more marketable. On eBay, there are nothing but “boiler plate” descriptions of cards for sale, obviously done to save time. Give buyers a reason that the card is unique, and that can drive up sales.

If making money has become an important part of the hobby, making individual cards marketable only helps in that matter. Such a card’s Beckett price isn’t going to change, but their eBay comp price can. Take the 1996 Pinnacle baseball card of Bob Hamelin as an example, it’s one of the worst designed cards in the hobby. That’s really the only thing that makes the card appealing, and its awareness has grown in hobby trade publications and online discussions. The card’s Beckett price is a lousy $0.20 for it being a common. eBay comp pricing? People have bought the card for nearly $20, and current listings are in the $25-50 range.

The entire process is what I call “making a card 3-dimensional.” Give it life again.

All of these examples, if you didn’t know them by now, are now part of your collecting knowledge. However, there’s a big difference between telling a story about a card and showing a story through a card. It’s like seeing a picture of the Statue of Liberty and actually seeing it with your own two eyes from NYC.

Put together a small collection, gather around the coffee table, and entertain away!