Night Owl Cards

  You guys probably know Jay, from the blog Card Hemorrhage . A couple of weeks ago I received an email from him informing me that he was getting out. He said the hobby hadn't stuck for him and he was looking for advice on the best way to sell off his collection. He sent along a list of his inventory, and I did my best to give him a plan of attack. But before he started selling his cards to complete strangers, I swung a deal for one item on his list. I'm now the owner of a complete, and pristine, 1981 Kellogg's 3-D set. This set gives me a run of complete Kellogg's sets from 1976 through 1982 and it's the second one I've "completed" this year (I don't know if buying a whole set in one shot can technically be considered "completing"). It's fired me up enough that I've started looking around again -- a little bit -- at pre-1976 Kellogg's cards. But I don't expect to do a lot there for quite awhile. The '81 Kellogg's ...

  Longtime readers of this blog may know that I don't make New Year's resolutions when it comes to the hobby. Heck, most years I don't make New Year's resolutions period.   The hobby resolution ban has to do with how resolutions aren't very fun and imply that you're doing something wrong, and I am never doing anything wrong when it comes to collecting my cards.   But there's one thing I'd like to resolve to do in the new year, because it's driving me wacky right about now. I'd like to not be so scatter-brained.   This has come up twice recently as far as collecting cards (and lots of other times in other areas of my life because that's just what happens when you to get to my age).   A few days ago, I received a 1981 Kellogg's Steve Garvey card from reader Stewart. He had noticed that I had listed the card on my Nebulous 9 and he had an extra copy.   He's a sharp reader because it hadn't been on the Nebulous 9 for very long. I had ...

  I'm probably about the last blogger to get around to the holiday Pick Pocket goodies I snared from Julie at A Cracked Bat . So I best get to it. Most of what I want from the Pick Pocket offerings are Dodgers, of course, but also cards that feature players from my younger days or players from the '50s and '60s. So that usually means oddballs or retro cards. Julie has a lot of those and these are popular with some other bloggers, particularly Bo , who is way quicker on the draw with these cards than I am. But I managed to find a few and I thought I'd play a game with them that I am calling "Want List Worthy." The best cards often mean I like them so much that I want to complete the set that contains that card. And before I know it, I'm creating a want list for the set. So let's see which of these cards from Julie are from sets that are Want List Worthy: Raul Mondesi, 1994 Flair, Wave of the Future insert Chances of making a want list: 0% The main reas...

I think I've established that I don't have the greatest card show luck around here. Shows are few-and-far between. What was once a four-shows-a-year schedule is now down to two. (There are other smaller shows within a two-to-three-hour driving distance, but they're usually scheduled for the most inconvenient times on the calendar). I know my card show lament often turns out the usual "you think that's bad,? I haven't been to a show in 50 years, my life SUCKS way more" comments. But I'm not here to say I have the worst card show luck, just that it's not great. The latest example: I've been waiting patiently for the April card show at the state fairgrounds since the start of the year. It would be my first show since early October and it's annually the happiest show in my experience. Spring has sprung. Baseball is on the TV. The online site mentioned that all 105 dealer tables were sold out! See ya there! Then Monday this: Ye...

Did you practically jump when you saw this image on your blog roll? I did when I first pulled the card out of a PWE from Dime Box Nick . It wasn't just the '70s white man's afro, or the wispy stache, or Larry Bowa staring unblinkingly back at me. It was that this card broke a pattern. Once you've been collecting for awhile, you get to know cards so well that various sets follow patterns that become familiar to you. The dugout shots in 1981 Topps. The wacky cropping in 1982 Fleer. The distant players in 2004 Topps. The patterns become ingrained in your brain and you don't even think about them anymore. It's just a basic truth: There are a crap-load of players with no hats in 1970 Topps. Kellogg's 3-D cards' basic truth is that images are torso shots. Batters posed in a stance or placed a bat on their shoulder. Pitchers propped a glove in front of their chest or faked a throw. Sometimes you saw a leg or two because another common pose was kneeling...