Night Owl Cards

  I've been tangling with modern inconveniences for the past month. None of it is overwhelming or a real crisis but also all of it was not even a thought 10 years ago.   To review briefly:   * Misunderstandings related to social media (yes, plural) * Getting yelled at work by readers (related to cutbacks and out of my control) * Covid arriving at home for the first time and during the holidays (we're OK) * Contractors who say they'll do the job and then disappear (it's now an epidemic around here)   It does wear on me and I'm sure others have been dealing with their own life issues at this time. It's one of the reasons why I collect -- it gives me my own space to go where I can shut out the drama of everyday existence. I'm not sure what I'd do if I didn't collect and baseball was in its offseason -- whine about my team's transactions, I guess.   But collecting saves me from that. And sometimes you get happy little card convergences that make life...

  My most recent COMC order arrived the other day, after waiting a bit longer than they said I was going to wait, about two weeks longer. I don't know if that indicates anything but it's not a big deal right now because it's still not as long as I've been waiting for the Beckett Vintage Collector issue with Rickey Henderson on the cover. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that it probably should have shown up about a month ago, and normally I wouldn't care too much but I suspect an article of mine (or maybe two) is in it. If I had a decent book store near me (aka Barnes & Noble), I could check for it myself, but living among the rubes, I can't do that without planning an outing. I bring this all up again because my articles paid for the 1970 Nolan Ryan I showed last time and they also paid for my COMC order. This is "the other half," although it's a lot more than one card and also cost a lot less. So, let's get to it, since other people aren...

I just counted how many 1975 Topps minis I need to complete the set. And it happens to be exactly 100. I consider that a milestone to celebrate. If you knew what I have heard about collecting '75 minis my whole collecting life, you would be aware of how mind-blowing it is that I am just 100 cards away. Long before we were bombarded with "rare cards" and artificial scarcity, '75 minis were considered one of the more difficult cards to obtain from the '70s and '80s era. And yet -- 100 left. That's some cool beans. The person who got me down to 100 is The Junior Junkie . T.J. has this guy that he knows at card shows who always has '75 minis. In fact, he calls him "his mini guy." I really, really need one of those guys in my life. Where do you get one? But a sad little note accompanied this latest package of '75 minis. It said -- let me wipe away some tears here so I can read it: "This is the last of my mini guy's co...