Night Owl Cards

(A chilly welcome to you all on "Old Stuff Day". Apparently this day was created to encourage people not to do "the same old stuff" and then modified to encourage people to clean out their "old stuff." But I will choose to recognize the day by showing my card Old Stuff. Like I do many days of the year on this blog! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 349th in a series):   I added these two Drake's cards from Diamond Jesters' Time Travel series . The Drake's cards from the 1980s have always interested me for a few reasons.   a) The 1981 Drake's set was the first time I owned a complete set. It was very easy to do, all I had to do was send away for it and the 33 cards were mine. I wrote about it a number of years ago .   b) That same '81 set is numbered by race. Yeah, really. Coincidence or not, it's there as plain as the cardboard it's printed on. I did a post about that, too, after being tipped off by a commenter and f...

(For a brief moment, I thought of starting a non-card blog to document the music I've been listening to, sometimes while writing this blog, but mostly while driving or working late at night. In the last 2-3 years I've really gotten into current music -- not the stuff on the radio/charts -- and it's kind of more fascinating than cards right now. But I'm not great at expressing my musical appreciation or criticism and I already run a blog that nobody reads so that thought disappeared until it popped back into my mind right now. Anyway, time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 332nd in a series): One of the best ways for me to discover cards that amuse me is when doing research for posts. That's how I stumbled upon this card, while going through cards for the First Manager Card Invasion post a couple weeks ago. I had never seen it before. It's a high number in the 1962 Topps series, one of the highest. I immediately wondered whether that is the most tobacco s...

  It's getting down to the last few days of 2022. I've exhausted just about every card anniversary that has occurred in the past year. But one thing I've never done is acknowledge my complete 1962 Topps Dodgers team set. It's still the 60th anniversary of the original wood-bordered set for another 12 days. In fact, I don't even recall what the last card was that completed my team set for '62. I went back through the blog to see if I could pin down that triumphant day, because this blog is always about celebrating my card milestones. Still, I couldn't find it. Then I realized why I couldn't. It's because I haven't completed it. I may never complete it. Thanks to this guy: Bob Uecker is on one of those rookie prospects cards with Dodgers prospect Doug Camilli. I'm just not willing to pay 60 bucks or so for a tiny floating head, I don't care if Ueck did get me through a couple lonely Saturday nights watching Mr. Belvedere. So, this team set ...

 Have you voted in the latest round of Cardboard Appreciation, the review (part 5)? To select which card from this week's group should advance, cast your vote in the comments or copy-and-paste to vote in the poll with this link: https://vote.easypolls.net/62ab88285617e80062b60897   If you search around enough on my blog, you'll find a post or two or three of me saying I don't care much for sets from the early 1960s. I didn't -- for a long time. Nothing from that time period spoke to me. Unlike a few '50s sets that snuck in and connected despite me not being around to collect them originally, those '60s sets, I couldn't be bothered with them. Photos too boring, designs too plain and not much of clue about who was on the card. But things are turning around a little bit. I'm not trying to complete the sets or anything. But something in me decided it's right to have at least a small sampling of cards from this time, like I do for, say, 1957 or 1968. The...

  I'm sure this happens to everyone, but when I'm shopping for other people, most of the time I'm also shopping for myself.   During the Christmas season, especially if I'm in a store that sells cards, I'll swing by the card aisle if there is any cash left after shopping for the significants.   And when I'm looking for cards online for someone, I find myself throwing a few things for myself in the cart, too.   Sometimes when you're shopping for someone else, you end up with a card just because! I think that's what happened with the Devin Mann Bowman Platinum autograph card up top. It arrived from The Diamond King .   I had snagged a couple of cards from his most recent Flash Freebie (it pays to look at people's vacation photos, you guys) to distribute in my 5,000-post giveaway and -- what's this? -- it's my second Devin Mann autograph card! (Devin Mann is in his second year of Double A in Tulsa, but I'll ignore that now).   These were all...

I'm sure you've seen many posts over the last few weeks from collectors featuring what they bought on COMC on Black Friday weekend. COMC hosts its best deals of the year that weekend, from what I hear anyway. And lots of people -- who are very on top of the latest "thing to do" -- pounce. It's actually very smart, lots of money to save, free shipping, etc. But I'm not nearly that together. I am never in any shape to buy cards on COMC on Black Friday. It's usually a day for some family activity or recuperation. Two years ago, I was in a bowling alley with lots of babbling nieces and nephews (OK, one of them was my own kid). Last year I was dealing with the final days of my mother-in-law. Today, I was driving home in a haze very desperate to get some sleep. The sales -- again -- passed me by. However, I love cards and I love COMC. So about two weeks ago, I placed a small order with some money I had budgeted for Christmas purchases that it turns out I ...