Night Owl Cards

   Ever since I was a kid I've been about the "more" of cards. I have always liked "more cards" over "less cards."   This probably has to do with not having a lot when I was a kid. I had old-school parents who thought kids should earn things through something called an allowance. I didn't have much money, and there was nobody around to just give me stuff unless my grandma made a visit or it was my birthday. Even then nobody was gifting me a complete set.   So when I finally started working and receiving a paycheck, well, adding as many cards as I could seemed like a great idea.   Add the fact that I come from the set-building generation -- what's the point of getting cards if they're not going toward a set? -- and more is the way to go. Those sets are at least 660 cards strong and filled with commons.   So through decades of following the "more mantra," I have added binders upon binders of cards and boxes upon boxes. You've se...

   Does it seem like finding the baseball cards you want is like finding a mate these days?   It does for me. Oh sure, I can find cards that I like and add them fairly easily. But the ones I really, really want seem more and more elusive. Is it because everyone else wants them, too? Is it like when everyone wanted to go out with that one girl?   It feels like that.   I've all but given up on the 1975 Kellogg's girl (or the earlier '70s Kellogg's sets for that matter). They're playing way too hard to get. Higher prices and you can't even be sure that the card is going to come without flaws.     I'm still in hot pursuit of 1975 Hostess though. It's gotten more and more challenging. I just landed this Roger Metzger short-print and purchased another SP just today. But there are 10 cards to go after that and most are SPs. Did you know there's some guy selling the Bill Buckner card for $200??? You're not worth that, honey.   I'm trying to guess whi...

   On the good side of being down one vehicle for at least the next month is I won't be able to act on any impulses to drive to Target/Walmart in search for cards.   The past week demonstrated how home-bound I will be (we're a two-car family and opposite work shifts allow us to trade-off the remaining -- older -- vehicle). The only alternative for card purchasing will be online.   I'm well-aware of the online options. I've mentioned many times that there have been no reliable card shops where I live for decades. The monthly card show has been a blessing, but that brings me to another obstacle: the weather.   I had planned to go to the latest monthly show Saturday. I skipped the one last month because it was zero degrees with wind-whipping snow. But this time, snow reappeared again, starting overnight -- more nasty angry-wind stuff. But the forecast promised it would wrap up by late morning. So, no sweat, the card show runs until 3.   Then the late morning f...

    This 1975 Hostess card of Brewers pitcher Billy Champion cost me 8 bucks -- a little more than 10 with shipping included.   The card contains a small crease in the corner and the pitcher, although featuring one of the all-time names in the sport, was an average performer in the '70s, otherwise known as "a common." But it's a short-print.   The Champion arrived not too long after the card of his former teammate, Robin Yount. The Yount is a short-print and its his rookie card, too, but it cost only a few bucks more than the Champion, likely because it's got a few issues (though nothing that bothers me in the slightest when it comes to Hostess cards).   I've returned to attempting to finish this set after getting frustrated with it last year. I didn't encounter the kind of price bumps I'm seeing with '75 Hostess when I was completing the 1976 and 1977 Hostess sets (1976 completed at the end of 2021 and 1977 in mid-2024). But I've got around 17...

  The internet has a great way of providing something you have always wanted, or never even imagined possible ... and then eventually ruining it.   I experienced this great disappointment in duplicate in 2025. Two sites, so entrenched in my entertainment preferences for so many years, had evolved so far away from what I had valued them for that I could no longer ignore it.   I am struggling now to separate myself from one of them, which is Spotify. I have used the streaming site daily for the last four or five years, it has been where I discover new music and how I determine my favorite songs and albums of the year. So getting away from that and finding a new option (I'm trying Tidal right now but it is not cooperating with me) is going to take awhile.   The other site I hope is more of a clean break. In fact, I have already declared in multiple places that I have made my final order on COMC. I hope that remains true.   I have been ordering from COMC since late ...

  Hooooooooooooooooo! It's your favorite cardboard-collecting owl's designated holiday! Who decided I'd rather scare kiddies from tree tops instead of page binders inside a well-lit card rooooooooooooom? Who? Who? Was it the same person who decided airing Game 6 of the World Series on a major holiday was a good idea? Who? Who?   When you think about it, Halloween is trooooooooooly the oddball holiday on the calendar when it comes to major U.S. holidays. Almost every other holiday has to do with family, country or religion. Halloween covers a couple of those elements but only tangentially and only if you have little tykes trudging outside in the rain and wind and cold while they beg for gooooooooooooodies.   So on this oddball holiday I have some gooooooooodies of my own -- the cardboard kind -- that arrived on this festive day. They happen to be oddballs, tooooooooooooo! In keeping with the season.     Ooooooooooooo. One of the last remaining 1971 Fleer World Se...