Night Owl Cards

   Like several other bloggers I received a nice care package from Bob of the best bubble a couple of weeks ago.   I'm just getting to it because -- yes, life has reared its ugly head again. But also it took me a number of days to figure out exactly what I had once I spilled the contents. Lots of oddball stuff and other items I don't come across every day.   I'll separate these into "STUFF I KNOW," "STUFF I FIGURED OUT" and "STUFF I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS".     * STUFF I KNOW*   Yes, I know this is a 1996 Finest card. I have it already. But I've suckered myself into collecting both the cards with the coating intact and the ones with it removed. I need help.     A 2013 Gypsy Queen mini of former Dodgers reliever Paco Rodriguez. 2013 was the year for Paco Rodriguez cards. Rodriguez last pitched in the majors 11 years ago and he's now 35. We're all old.       Another Dover reprint card for the collection of one of my pre-war...

I've talked about paring down my collection of Dodger relics for years now. I've done some trimming, holding a couple of giveaways. But I'm almost to the point where I want to keep what I have, at least for now. Every once in awhile, though, a relic card emerges from the walk-in safe downtown where I keep my relics (What? You don't do the same?), and I think, "why the heck do I have this thing?" In fact, it happened several weeks ago with one of them. But it took me coming across another card first. It was this card: This is a gold-bordered parallel from 2001 Topps Archives, which is a retro-reprint set. The Archives card is paying tribute to Shawn Green's initial Topps appearance in a base set, which happened in 1992. The card is replicating this card: Green appeared in the Draft Picks subset in 1992 as the Blue Jays' No. 1 pick in 1991. So this is a Blue Jays card. But I don't own Green's '92 card (the above is filched...