Night Owl Cards

  My first sportlots order of the year is finally here. There always seems to be one straggler card I'm waiting for two weeks after everything else is in. But content is content, it doesn't matter when it appears on here.   Ol' Walt was the late arrival -- almost got to the point where I sent a "I think the mail lost my card" messsage. But instead I get to declare that this card finished the Dodgers team set for the TCMA The 1960s II set from 1981!   This kind of card is about all that I ordered this time around -- stuff that either finished or got me closer to finishing team sets or set sets. The whole order turned out to be smaller than my usual sportlots order. I guess I was trying to save a little cash. The total seems slight, but it still packs a punch with me!     More TCMA stuff, but I'm nowhere near completing these team sets. I'm making a dedicated effort to finish the 1978 TCMA 1941 Dodgers set, which the Kirby Higby card is from at left. Hoping ...

  It's been a fairly stressful week, between traveling, a delayed doctor's appointment, the loss of a beloved player from my youth, and now the most taxing World Series matchup I could possibly conjure up as a fan. The weekend will help a little (stupid sports teams still have to play on the weekend, tho) and so will the collection. I just happen to be wrapping up a super-simple sportlots order with the final cards trickling in. I like simple orders. Big-ticket and super-cool arrivals are always fun but they contain a certain amount of worry what with prices paid and condition concerns. Simple orders are just simple cards, they don't cost much but still they fill holes and are always wanted.   Some of those cards were upgrades and they've already been filed away with a smile. A 1983 Topps Ron LeFlore, a 1986 Fleer Bobby Castillo, items that should have always been pristine but weren't, and I was horrified. But now the monster is back in the closet.   Others were reg...

  After an initial rush of trades on TCDB, what were my first dozen-or-so deals on the site, the offers dried up for several weeks. I could have jumped-started some trades myself by making some offers finally, but I find that part very time-consuming and I've got limited time already. That's why I'll never whine about no TCDB trades because I know it's a two-way street. But I don't have to deal with that particular issue right now because it's like someone flipped a switch, all of a sudden the offers are pouring in again. This time several of the offers were from people I've dealt with a long time through the blogs, either they have their own blog or they've been a frequent commenter. As often is the case with my blog buddies, these trades are much less formal, even on TCDB, and we side-stepped some of the rules that are in place for when I transact with people on that site that I only know as a collection of letters and numbers. But before I get to thos...

  Have you seen the latest installment of the 1975 Topps worst-to-best countdown? My goodness, five episodes in and I guess everyone's bored to death of it. Probably an overreaction on my part, but after averaging 280 views on this series it was suddenly down to 135 yesterday! I know it's just a bunch of head shots, but check it out if you haven't.   OK, sorry, blogger's lament there. Moving on.   One of the craziest transformations in cards over a period of time has got to be the evolution of the Pacific brand. A lot of what I hear about Pacific is related to cards that look like the one above, stuff that came out in the second half of the 1990s.   Or stuff like this:   I can handle that kind of Pacific in small doses. Not many of their primary sets do much for me. Too much pointless bling. But I'll enjoy a crazy insert or parallel or two.   Something that's more my speed is earlier Pacific, when it was known as Pacific Legends.   I received all of t...

  The card blogging scene has ebbed and flowed during the 15 years that I have been doing this. It's gone from sensation to "so-uncool" to consistently and always there. Blogging about cards isn't going away, no matter how much it gets dismissed or ignored.   Aside from writing about cards, which has always been the why, one of the very few constants in all that blogging time is giveaways.   From Tribe Cards to Johnny's Trading Spot, the generosity is off the chart for blogs. I don't care what Twitter says with its RAKs and "hobby fams" (lordy, that phrase is annoying), nothing has the history that blogs do for sending off cards just because.   Sometimes months go by without some sort of giveaway and then all of a sudden they're back, two, three, four at a time. The prize hounds know this, too. Often the only time I see a comment from certain someones is when there's something in it for them.   But I do try to win cards, too -- I just make su...