Night Owl Cards

Some cards arrived at the house recently from blog reader and frequent commenter Stubby, who provides a needed and often insightful perspective on various card topics, but especially cards from the '60s, because I'm not Don Draper, man. The cards fell into two distinct categories and they're so different that I must break them up into separate posts. I will start with the totally unexpected cards first. Yes, the Dodgers cards were the unexpected ones. Stubby went traveling through my want lists, which is the only way to fly. And he found stuff that would've taken me years to reach on that perpetual priority list in my head. For example, Panini products, both up there, and down here. You all know my stance on Panini, but I'll suspend the criticism just this one time to mention that the Roy Campanella Elite Giants card is pretty awesome. A larger photo would have been nice (the design, Panini, the design), but I'm happy to have that card. Anothe...

I didn't know this until today, but I have won a card contest every month since August. I don't consider myself one of those people who wins contests all the time. As I just mentioned, I even ignore contests for free cards sometimes. So if I don't always enter contests, how do I keep winning? Well, for five easy payments of $99.99, my proven contest-winning methods can be ... nah, not really. I have no idea how I keep winning. I'm just in some sort of contest zone. Like a hitter in a hot streak, I'm seeing the ball real big right now. It's like a beach ball up there. A giant, free-card-filled beach ball. Let's see the rundown of contests I've won: August: The "guess how much the cards I bought at the card show cost" contest, from gcrl September: The "explain yourself for minis" contest, from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop October: The "almost the easiest World Series on the Web" contest from Collector...

I bought my first card on ebay in three years a couple of days ago. I've pretty much ignored ebay during the life of this blog. Money and anonymity are a terrible combination, and I was sick of the hassle. Also, my will power wasn't as strong then as it is now. You'll see that rare ebay purchase at some point soon. But tonight I'm covering what has become an acceptable alternative for me, Listia. After a rocky start, I've added some semi-decent cards for my collection. Listia doesn't have a lot of high-end, "hit" cards that you'd find on ebay -- in fact it has more than its share of junk -- but there is enough out there that interests me. The best part is the cards are free. ... Well, sort of. If you want to obtain cards, you have to accumulate credits (Listia's "currency" is credits or points). The best way to accumulate credits is to "sell" your own cards on Listia. When you do "sell" them, you have to...

I've been doing this blog for a couple of years, and one thing I have noticed is that some collectors have the organizational aspect of the hobby down cold. I'm not one of those collectors. But I've been envious of the ones who know exactly how many cards that they have. I've never known that. I just have never gotten around to counting them all up. Wrigley Wax , every once in awhile, announces how many Cubs he has in his collection. That always caused me to wonder how many Dodgers I have in my collection. I've been wondering now for more than two years. But not anymore. Today, in the middle of about 400 other things going on because it's still blasted MARCH, I did a quick inventory of all my Dodger cards. Yes, I'm insane. But in that state of insanity, I was lucid enough to keep the count to just my cards. Stickers were out. Glossy 5x7 photos were out. Postcards were out. All I tallied were those items that meet the traditional definition of a card...