Night Owl Cards

  When you have incoming card packages constantly arriving as a blogger, clutter isn't something confined to the stacks of cards, envelopes, notes, those cut-up pages of three pockets and top-loaders and penny sleeves galore, clogging up space on desks and tables and floors. It's also the clutter that you see in your phone gallery and on the desktop of your computer. I often take pictures of arriving cards for future posts and then they sit and stare at me for weeks, I think the little photo icons are actually stamping their unseen feet impatiently, until I finally write about them. I hate being stared at almost as much as I hate to-do clutter. There is also one whale of a box of incoming cards that has no space to land (it's sitting on the floor trying to avoid being kicked right now). So I've got to make way. Here is where I'll start: I received an envelope -- or was it two, don't recall -- from Torren' Up Cards recently. One of the items was an unopened, ...

  A ranking post is the default setting on this blog. It's incredibly easy to rank things -- at least for me -- and some think it's the lazy way to address a topic or even as a blog post topic. In fact, I've read others say they really dislike rankings or top 10s, and to that I say: "well you've just hit No. 3 on my list of Opinions That Signify We Can Never Be Friends." Come on, ranking is fun! I've been writing lists since I was probably around 12. But I don't need to give you any history, if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you've come across a ranking or two or three. And I don't apologize for it, some of them are among my most popular posts. I'm always in search of a way to rank baseball cards that interests me. I've done the Best of the '70s and Best of the '80s card countdowns and I'm in search of something similar (but different) to do in the future. I have nothing nearly as in depth right no...

  I received a mailer the other day and I can't decipher the sender. There's the familiar "ebay" shipping label in the front, but the cards inside, although tailored to my interests, aren't anything I ordered. The return address has a female name, but I don't recognize it, and with the amount of female collectors I've come across during the life of this blog, I would know if she was a past trader. The envelope came from Minneapolis, and again, the collectors I know from Minneapolis don't go by that address and none of them have a significant other with that woman's name, I don't think. I don't know. I don't know them that well.   So, with no note and nothing else to go on, I have to assume it's some bygone acquaintance.   This blog is in its 13th year and I've communicated with hundreds of collectors and received almost as many packages. The list of bloggers who are no longer blogging about cards is massive and impossible to fit...

I mentioned on the last post of 2018 that I received a large box of cards on the last day of 2018. It was a box from reader Jonathan, who won one of my contests last year. I sent him a '75 Topps Nolan Ryan card for his winnings and what I got back dwarfed that Ryan card. Hell, I think it might even dwarf a Nolan Ryan rookie card. It is so full of goodies that I've had trouble figuring out how to approach it for the blog. There's no doubt I will need to break it up into separate posts. There's no way I can cover everything in one post. But how to start? Where do I start? There are Dodgers and oddballs and vintage and Sabres and nonsports ... I need a road map for this thing. Earlier today I was looking through the box in hopes of finding inspiration. I found it. Tucked into the side next to one of the rows of cards was a toploader with the above 1954 Bowman Carl Erskine card inside. I had gone through the box when it arrived at my house. I never saw the Erskin...