Night Owl Cards

Do you remember when this card was a big deal? In 2013, Yasiel Puig arrived in the major leagues in June. He tore up the league and became the rookie sensation of the year. Since Puig had not been an established minor league presence, there were almost no cards of him. Bowman had just arrived and there were a couple of cards of Puig in that set, but the hype was strong and the demand for more cards was loud. So Leaf in its usual ugly, nonlicensed way, issued a six-card redemption set of Puig that was available at the National, which took place two months after Puig's debut. Open enough product at the Leaf booth and you could win some "Leaf Bucks" to purchase the six-card set, which was Puig in six different poses. I had been hit by Puig fever and really did want that set. I'd settle for even one card. The set wasn't exactly available to us commoners who couldn't travel 1,500 miles to open cards from a company we barely knew. So, eventually the hype ...

Those of you who are following the almost daily release of ToppsNow cards know that my favorite current player, Clayton Kershaw, received his first ToppsNow card on Monday. I admit, I was tempted to throw down $10 on a single card to get that Kershaw, but there is a reason that I don't keep the paypal stocked when I don't have any plans to use it -- to save myself from wild spending like this. There's no way anyone should be asking me to pay $9.99 for a single modern card. It's ridiculous. Ten dollars for something that looks like you pulled it out of a $2.99 pack at the big box store? I'll wait however long it takes for the price to go down and hope it's around then. Because I've been trying to do smarter things with my card-spending money. For example, here's an exercise for team collectors: I went to COMC to search for cheap Dodgers cards. I typed in the word "dodgers" and set the search for "lowest price." I wanted to se...