Night Owl Cards

  I returned from a couple days away (more on that later) to find in the mailbox the last two cards that I needed to complete my 1979 Kellogg's set.   In terms of other Kellogg's sets from 1970-83, the '79 version is not that difficult, but I had the misfortune of attempting to finish it when a whole new crowd of collectors discovered Kellogg's cards -- or, more probably, rediscovered them. Prices rose, and I started to get sniped, and all those things that shouldn't happen when pursuing Kellogg's cards!   It took longer for me to complete it than the '77 and '78 Kellogg's pursuits, which ain't the way it's supposed to go.   But that's all in the past now, I've finished the set and with '79 done, I now have complete sets for Kellogg's 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980.   For me that's the golden era of Kellogg's. That's the period when I knew about those cards intimately, chased them frantically and waited impatientl...

  A week ago at this time, Twitter was abuzz with the release of Topps Series 2. It was comical really. I know Twitter is very ADD by nature and everyone loves a new release, but Series 2 is not something to get that excited about and it's getting more and more terrible. I've had a conflicted relationship with Series 2 for quite awhile and I've mentioned it on the blog before. It's very anticlimactic if you don't like the set that year (see: 2016, 2017) and this year especially it's almost pointless. A lot of this is probably not Topps' fault. Supply issues, manpower issues, etc., have likely led to what I've seen in Series 2, which is a complete lack of attention to detail. This is not on the level of 2020 Topps Update but seeing Kenley Jansen and A.J. Pollock still in Dodgers uniforms in Series 2 is not making me want to collect it. On top of that, I've seen the photos for a lot of the other Series 2 Dodgers, Trea Turner, Max Muncy, etc., because t...

  The popular Twitter card question-and-answer feature, CardChat, put out a series of questions yesterday relating to buying cards, particularly in 2022. The last question was simple: show your favorite card purchase from this year.   I was stumped.   Any other year, it would've been the easiest question in the world to answer. But this year, so far, I have no answer.   Sure, I've bought cards I've liked, you've seen them on this blog for the last four months. But there's nothing that stands out as FAVORITE or something that other collectors would see and, say, "oh yeah, that's a great card."   A year ago at this time, I was buying 1956 Topps of superstars, any number of two dozen cards I purchased in the first four months of 2021 I could enter as my answer to my favorite card purchase and be sure about it.   But this year is different. Buying cards is different. If I want to buy vintage, I will more than likely have to pay something unreasonable, if I...

One of my regrets from last weekend's card show is holding 1970s Kellogg's cards in my hands and not buying any of them. Normally, when going to a card show I note that if I find '70s Kellogg's cards, I will make certain that they are captured, tagged, bagged and strapped to the top of the car for the long trip home. But I had them in my hands and then I let them get away. I can only hope that they will be fruitful and multiply. I had an excuse of course. When I'm surrounded by deeply discounted 1950s cards even Kellogg's can't compete with that. The other excuse was I had just received a bunch of '70s oddballs from Scott Crawford On Cards! Exclamation points!!! The reason I love '70s oddballs so, and prefer them vastly to any other kind of oddball, is because they are part of the pipeline. I've written about the pipeline before, many times. The pipeline is cards from the '70s. Specifically cards from 1974-80, but I'll allow...

Every once in awhile, I think about collecting a nonsports set. Not any science fiction thing, I don't get into that. But a set about a TV show or a movie sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I can't do that. I already collect too much ... uh ... stuff. That realization hit me like 2,000 junk wax commons in the middle of yesterday's card show. I was bouncing between 1970s cereal issues and 1950s Topps and '60s cards in the discount bin when I saw him . There was this man, roaming from table to table, searching for one card. It was a card of Eddie Waitkus, the player shot by a young, obsessed, female fan that then led to the book and the movie, "The Natural." Apparently the card makes mention of the incident on the back and this man wanted that card. After thinking, "what a cool card," I kept thinking, "is that all he's here for?" Shortly after that, I talked to a man who was looking for a graded copy of a late 1950s Brooks Ro...