Night Owl Cards

 The last two cards that I needed to complete the 1981 Coke sets (this will be disputed by a certain noted collector) arrived in the mail today. Although I've always loved those Coke issues from around this time, I didn't go all-in on them until this year, when other oddball issues from my favorite time period increased in price and availability. In the spring, I did a lot of damage to the Coke sets, but eased off over the following months. I resumed the chase a few weeks ago. Finally, about a week ago, the last two player cards showed up in the mail. This is the charm of the sets. Although there is a Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose and George Brett, they aren't necessarily more difficult to obtain than the other cards. That's because mojo hunters -- who only collect stars and rookies -- aren't interested in these much, and isn't it wonderful? It's so nice that something from my childhood hasn't been run roughshod by "investors" and the like.   Still,...

  Last month I pulled this card after purchasing the first cards I had seen for sale in a full aisle display since the early days of the pandemic. It's stunning when you think of it, that out of all the chrome refractor parallels numbered to 673 -- hundreds of possibilities -- I would pick the Wander Franco card. It's just as stunning the price it went for after I put it up for sale. It sold for $258.07. That blows my mind. It also boggles my mind that there were 87 watchers and 463 page views. None of this makes sense. I would never pay that kind of money for a card unless I had invested a lot of time into that player (or that set) over a number of years -- not somebody who just burst onto the scene in the last year or two. But that's our hobby now and thank goodness in at least one way -- I got to spend almost $200 on cards I actually want! You're gonna see them. All told, I ended up with 65 cards for a single card. I won't show all of them, just the stuff that...

Oof, yesterday was a rough one. A longtime and well-loved former co-worker passed away over the weekend. I worked closely with him for a number of years and I'm almost the last one around from when he was working there, so I wrote the remembrance for him in the paper.   It was a long day and wore me out. But I appreciate the opportunity, although the rest of the week won't be any easier.   It's also another road block in my attempt to do card things and nothing but card things, so the 5,000-post/card giveaway encountered a little hiccup. But it's still in motion!   I had started out sending packages in the order of how winners commented on the giveaway although there was no real order set out. Then in the middle of packaging the repack giveaways, I got an envelope from Jeff of Wax Pack Wonders . He sent a note saying he was sending a few return cards before he forgot in anticipation of receiving his giveaway package. And, just like that, I instinctively started filling ...

  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...

  I'm in one of those periods where life is conspiring against the hobby. Pretty typical for March. Let's review: 1. Prices on cards are still dumb. Thank goodness I don't care about football or basketball cards or rookies because I'd be out of the hobby and collecting bottle caps by now. But the up-charge on vintage is annoying and it's made me shift my focus (more on that in a bit). 2. I'm in danger of missing my second card show in as many months. The job is fixing to make me work on a usual weekend day off, the exact day of a one-day-only card show. I'm going to have to arrange some sort of bizarre schedule work-around if I want to make that show.   3. But the biggest plot against cards for the past week-and-a-half is our bathroom is being remodeled. The bathroom is directly across from the card room. For the past 8 days, workers have been arriving at 7 a.m. and creating a whole lot of noise. Do you know how much that upsets a night owl schedule? Also, t...