Night Owl Cards

  I pulled the latest magazine issue of Beckett Vintage Collector out of the mailbox on Monday and paged through it without any urgency. I didn't have an article due to run, the last of them was in the previous issue.   So I was surprised about three articles in to see my name on a story about the 1954 Topps set. By golly, I did write that! More than a year ago!   I had figured that this one wasn't going to run. That happens sometimes, it happened to one of my articles once before. And being a writer and editor for a newspaper, I understand how that goes. Sometimes the article doesn't fit, there are too many other articles that are more timely or have better art or whatever. Or, heck, maybe the idea just isn't solid. I'll acknowledge that with this one, it wasn't one of my better ones.   But I was happy to see it in print. I've now appeared in the last three Beckett Vintage Collector issues, which had never happened before (there won't be a fourth straig...

   Trading cards takes a lot of time. Also, sometimes it takes a lot of work.   Everyone collects differently and sometimes it's difficult to match up with another collector. That happens all the time. No big deal really. Then there are the fellow collectors that drag out trades for too damn long.   I never participated in collectors forums, but I've heard that trades were often like that there. I have no problem trading away nice cards, but I'm not going to send a couple dozen messages back and forth to come to an agreement on an exact accounting of precise compensation. I've dealt with this in the past with a couple bloggers. It's not fun. Trading is supposed to be fun.   That's why I gravitate to super simple trades. My favorite are: "I'll send you some cards whenever and you send some cards whenever." That's how most trades go on the blogs. It's about the only ones I make these days.   It's also why I participate in stuff like Diamo...

  I hadn't done much with the momentum that came with acquiring the 1954 Topps Tom Lasorda card months ago . With Lasorda's arrival, I was down to two cards to finish the '54 Dodgers team set, but the Rube Walker card sat in my online cart for ages, just daring someone to snatch it. Fortunately, not many collectors appreciate an off-condition card of a backup Brooklyn catcher. Their loss. I finally added it. That allowed me to slip Walker into the 15th spot and that was so satisfying ... Just wonderful. I've never been a big fan of the 1954 set but as often happens when you line them up all together in a display, you discover a set's appeal (once again, binders over boxes, folks).   There is the back for Albert Bluford Walker Jr. Interesting that the cartoon strip clearly references Roy Campanella but doesn't mention him by name. Campanella was under contract with rival Bowman in 1954. So Walker is finally secured ... and, yes, I've been hearing the "ye...

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...