Night Owl Cards

  Hey, it's another downsizing post. I didn't get to one of these in June and there are still cards that need to go out the door.   I've been pretty lax in adding cards to my collection, too. I blame some of this on the post office. There's been two times in the last month where I've ordered a single card ... and then waited a month for it to arrive. The second one hasn't appeared yet, and it damn well better because it finishes a team set and it wasn't cheap (i.e. another Heritage short-print).   That's put a damper on ordering through the mail, just a little. But a few cards have indeed arrived.     I've recently returned to the team O-Pee-Chee quest. After finishing off the '80s sets and some of the late '70s I moved on to other things. But it's time to get back. I'm starting with 1990 because it's the easiest. That Orel Hershiser was a former Nebulous Nine need.     BlueSky followers know that this 1965 Topps Leon Wagner card ...

  I don't expect this post to be anything more than venting. The collectors who need to see this aren't reading blogs. But sometimes I encounter something and I've got to write about it and that's why I'm laying down a few guidelines for the ridiculous idea of "card show etiquette."   I went to the monthly card show Saturday and was slightly surprised by how many people were attending. It's the summer time and usually dealers (if not the whole show) take the season off because it's not a very profitable time. But it was busy.   The show is in a medium-sized conference room in a small business complex. If you set up seven rows of tables inside that room, with another row of tables along the back wall and a couple tables along the front wall, there's not a lot of room to roam. That's the show promoter's fault more than the attendees, sure, but maybe take that into account before acting like you're the only one shopping.   I went to th...

  As much as I've complained about the pokemonification of card shows the last couple of years, when they are right, they are very right. Nothing else can compare, certainly not the online options that I rely on way too frequently.   This past Saturday's monthly show was quite right and I think not being able to get to it last month is only part of the reason I enjoyed it so much.   I know I've gone through the plusses for card shows before but I'm doing it again because it was very apparent this time.       1. OFF-CONDITION VINTAGE   Can you get off-condition vintage online? I don't know. Maybe. All I know is that I've stopped trying because it either stopped being available or the prices got mind-numbingly stupid.   But at a show that's not the case. I go to one table all the time and great vintage cards are waiting for me every time. This is what I picked up this time. The Ron Fairly I thought was an upgrade in my team set but it's not so now i...

  There are a lot of baseball card poses that were common on cards when I was collecting as a youngster that have mostly disappeared from cardboard.   One of them is the pitcher's "hands-over-head" wind-up pose. This pose used to appear on dozens of cards every year but it's been a long time since I've seen it in a current set. Maybe a one-off here and there.   Pitchers mostly have scrapped the long, drawn-out wind-up and did so beginning with the 1970s, or so I'm told. But I just reviewed a small sampling of game footage from the 1970s and here are the pitchers that were using that wind-up in the videos I watched:   Bruce Kison, Jerry Garvin, Steve Baker, Vida Blue, Jerry Koosman, Rudy May, Andy Hassler, Bob Knepper, Don Sutton, Dickie Noles, Jim Bibby, Eddie Solomon, Jim Rooker, Mike Cuellar, Don Robinson.   Here are the ones who weren't:   J.R. Richard, Jim Merritt, Steve Rogers.   So it was still prevalent in the 1970s.   Today it's still used...

  Ever since the local monthly show (and many other shows throughout the country) has become overrun with TCG cards I've debated skipping or at least not automatically attending every month. It's become less and less productive over the past 9 months to a year.   But like they say in the majors, "that's why you play the game." I was pretty surprised when I walked into the usual hall Saturday.   First, it was packed. I normally attend closer to 1 p.m. when typically the crowd has thinned out. But I could tell driving into the parking lot that there were still many people there. Second, the show was overwhelmingly sports cards. Any Pokemon, Magic, etc. seemed limited to a handful of tables. I don't know what caused the sudden shift back to sports cards but I was glad I got up off my recliner.   The change affected my mood more than my shopping. The tables were still overrun with graded football and basketball and I'm sure I heard "PSA" uttered 25-5...

   One thing that has become very clear to me over the last year is that my way of collecting cards -- the way that was the established primary way of collecting for as long as I've been alive -- is being phased out.   There are a variety of reasons -- and forces at work -- for this. I am reminded of one of them every time I attend the monthly card show.   In the past year, the show has moved from primarily sports cards to primarily RPG/TCG cards. I have less than zero interest in these. When I paid my entrance fee at the table, the guy there asked if I wanted to enter the raffle and gestured toward a gift basket filled with TCG stuff -- don't ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you. I gave the guy a flat "no" that sounded like "of course not."   But I'd say more than half of the tables was Pokemon, Magic and whatever else there is in that fantasy realm. Just about the rest was graded football and basketball of mostly modern cards. But I've writt...