Night Owl Cards

(I've been out of the loop as the covid booster sent me for a loop. Outside of two naps and going to bed at 11:15 p.m. yesterday -- very unusual for this night owl -- I thought I was doing OK. Then I realized I have more than a day's worth of blog posts that I had ignored! It was worse than I thought! I have some catching up to do. But first it's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 311th in a series):   I hope you don't mind the semi-rare detour into football this post, but the Buffalo Bills are trying to do something they haven't achieved in more than 30 years. If the Bills beat the Jets on Sunday, they will win the AFC East in back-to-back seasons. They haven't done that since they won four straight AFC East championships from 1988-91. That was back when I was covering the team! I am aware that was a long time ago, but it takes certain moments for it to hit you smack in the beak. For example, every time I see Frank Reich on the sidelines of an Indiana...

  The 1991 Score set is 30 years old this year.   As staggering as that is to hear, it seems about right in other ways. I have written about 1991 Score a whole bunch on this blog and references to it span the life of the blog -- 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019 all contain words dedicated to the blue, teal, black and white. I finally completed the 893-card monster a little more than a year ago and talked about it some more then, too. So, really, what I'm trying to do here is get another completed set out of the way in my Team MVPs series. I have reached 1981 in my reverse trip through history but continue to back-track as I complete more recent sets. This is me continuing to back-track with '91 Score. The only other thing I'll mention here before we get to the best card for each team in the set is to say I always wished Score would have picked a border color/theme for this set and stuck with it instead of four different colors (one being very early 1990s). The black-borde...

Over the first nine or 10 years of writing this blog I wondered what it would be like to collect cards and have money at the same time. Oh, I wasn't destitute. I had a home and a job. Same home and job I have now. But the money just wasn't there. The kid took up a lot of cash and so did the house and the car and the pet. My job paid (and continues to pay) less than a lot of teachers make. I had enough leftover money for small card purchases here and there, three-times-a-year card shows (if the cash was there) and periodic trips to the card aisle. I wasn't left wanting. People sent me cards from everywhere, more-than-generous gifts in the mail, packages that included cards I only dreamed of owning. But still, what would it be like? What would it be like to have extra money to play with in this hobby? I'm still wondering. The kid's college doesn't pay for itself. And that roof repair is overdue. But 2019 has been good to me in making sure a little ext...