Night Owl Cards

  The National has come and gone for another year but my National is still in the works. Longtime readers know that I don't go to the National, I wrote a post about why last year . Though I'll never rule out going in the future, a card-carrying introvert like me won't regret it if he never attends.   But usually at this time, inspired by the pictures I see from the National, I acquire some cards of my own. I call it "My National".   I'm fortunate enough that I happen to have enough money to spend on cards right when the National is going on, usually birthday-related, but not always. This year I had some money from a Beckett Vintage article plus an unexpected reimbursement check  So I got to acquire cards without blowing cash on plane tickets, gas, tolls, parking, food, lodging and admission, too!    Now, "My National" didn't come without some annoyances, as well. There are still a few cards that haven't arrived due to constant ebay delays tha...

  Kind of an odd thing for a night owl to squawk about, but it's another absolutely dismal winter day. I'm not used to this. Snow brightens up the surroundings here, but this rain (enough with the downpours already), gray skies and wind remind me of mid-March. If I wanted this weather in the winter I would've flown south already. While it saves on the heating bill, it's not great for my mood and, as I've crabbed about before, it's lousy for taking pictures of cards. Natural light is your friend, every photographer knows that. But all I've got in weather like this is the bathroom, which is the most well-lit room in the house. So in order to brighten things up even more, I selected some '70s cards to show. The 1970s were wonderful for that. Love their loud ways dearly. Johnny's Trading Spot sent me some 1971 Fleer Laughlin World Series cards off my want list (the '71s are the gray backs and also have the MLB logo on the front). These cards are as ...

  I will have my annual postseason post coming up in a day or two -- I think -- but before that I wanted to show some other postseason cards I've gained lately. I know the early '70s Fleer Laughlin cards aren't everyone's bag, but that's good because it'll keep the greedy suckers who are gobbling up every card they think is valuable away from stuff I love. These cards give me the warm fuzzies, remembering those days in the '70s when Laughlin's art was all the rage (well, it was everywhere anyway) at the same time I was first getting to know the history of the game. I received these four cards, they're from the 1970 Fleer World Series set, in a Twitter sale thread. These are from Allen .   Sale threads are all over Twitter these days, it's about 50 percent of what I see, it seems like. It's pretty annoying but at least I found something I like and could afford. As usual, the quirkiness of these cards, from the topics selected, to the illustrat...

When I had finally come to grips with the fact that there were three baseball card sets to collect instead of one in 1981, I turned my attention to what each company had to offer in conjunction with their baseball cards. Topps had gum, of course. Inedible yet comforting pink slabs. They were always good for a lick or two before you tossed them on someone's lawn. Donruss had puzzle pieces. Yeah, right. I'm going to assemble a puzzle. Puzzles were schoolwork without being in school. No thanks. Fleer, clearly, had the best "perk" in their packs. They had stickers. This wasn't a fair fight at all. I was aware of Fleer's stickers from the previous year. In 1980, you could get team logo stickers -- with a piece of bubble gum -- five to a pack. On the reverse side was a drawing for each World Series from 1940-79. I was hooked. A historical illustration of each World Series game? Even as a youngster, that was right up my alley. I immediately forgot about th...

(March sucks. Is it April yet?... And on that note, it's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 103rd in a series): When a baseball legend dies, you do what you can as a card collector. You find the finest cards you have of the player and show them off, figuring the greatness of the card will reflect the greatness of the subject. That's what I did when The Duke of Flatbush died on Sunday. But there are lots cards of Snider that didn't appear on 1949 Bowman stock or were even created in the 1950s. There are cards of Snider worth pennies. Leafing through the giant Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, I became all too aware of how many cards exist of Edwin Donald Snider. Many of them aren't worth much at all. I have some of those cards, Not a lot. But they are among my favorites, and there is something kind of a cool about having a card of a '50s superstar that is worthless ... monetarily speaking anyway. Here are just a few: This is one of se...