Night Owl Cards

The other day, Shoebox Legends featured a $20 repack box that contained a fair amount of fun and interesting for the money. I don't spend $20 in one shot on current cards much anymore. If I'm buying repacks, I prefer the hanging rack packs for under 10 bucks. If I spend $20 on cards, I'd rather go online and get something I know I want. But Shoebox's repack box offered a red signature autograph and few other things that made me find one myself the other day and open it up. I did it so eagerly that I can't show you the packs in the box window like Shane did so expertly. This is all I've got: So, you'll need to know the 20 packs I opened just in case you want to do the same. Here they are in boring old list form: -- 3 packs of 2012 Panini Triple Play -- 1 pack of 2013 Topps Opening Day -- 1 pack of 2013 Topps Update -- 2 six-card packs of 2013 Allen & Ginter -- 3 packs of 2013 Bowman Platinum -- 6 packs of 2014 Topps (Series 1 and Ser...

I went to my first legitimate card show in a year today. There's a lot of driving involved to get to this show and back and I'm pretty pooped from all of that. I didn't spend a lot of time at the show, mostly because of money, but also for another reason that I'll try to explain in tomorrow's card show report post. I walked away from the show a little disconnected. I think I need 24 hours to work that out. Meanwhile, one of the cards I grabbed was this Heritage News Flashbacks card from last year's set. I pounce on anything that shows St. Louis because of my personal connection to the city. It's interesting to me that the Gateway Arch was completed exactly 22 years to the day that I set foot in the city for one of the most memorable times of my life. I did go up in the Gateway Arch at night, and I remember looking down on all the twinkling lights of the city through the rather tiny spectator windows at the top. I have little items saved from that ...

Down in the dumps. That's late August for me. The dumps. Everywhere I turn is a reminder that good times are ending. The state fair began today. The last fair of the summer. There's a big concert (well, big for this area) on Saturday. The last big concert of the summer. The U.S. Open begins next week. The last big sports event of the summer. Then there are those reminders of what's coming. Preseason football talk won't let you forget. Neither will preparations for high school sports. Nor will -- wait a minute -- are those ... are THOSE colored leaves on my LAWN???? Summer's ending. Fall's beginning. And winter, which just ended in late April around these parts, is planning an early start, according to those freakin' farmers and their damn precious almanac. The dumps. Baseball helps a little, but not much because at this time of year either your team is out of it or you're so stressed out over your team's offense/bullpen/injury-prone rot...

Look at that card. Isn't it gorgeous? Oh, sure, some of you might consider it boring. It's not boring. It's the opposite of boring. It's elegant. It's classic. It's simple in the most wonderful way. Oh, and it's also Gypsy Queen. Yeah, I'm calling a Gypsy Queen card "gorgeous". I'll get to that. This card was sent to me by JediJeff at 2 by 3 Heroes . Since I am going out of my way to avoid Gypsy Queen this year, I had no idea what it was. I looked it up and determined that it was an insert in the GQ set. It's called an N174 insert, and it's based on a set from 1888. This, my fellow collectors, is what Gypsy Queen should be. I know that would mean that we couldn't call it "Gypsy Queen," we'd have to call it "N174," and that's a horrible name if you're trying to get anyone to buy your product. But I don't care, man. Put away that box of ugly you've been throwing at us for fo...

Yesterday I bought a pack of 2014 cards for the first time in a month. The recent spate of new products -- Opening Day, Gypsy Queen, Bowman -- are about as undesirable as it gets. I settled on Heritage and promptly pulled the above card for the third time. I haven't bought very much 2014 Heritage. The times I have are chronicled on this blog. Only three instances, I think. And yet, I pulled a host of dupes out of this rack pack. I also did not pull any short-prints, which is the only reason I'm still buying Heritage because I know a couple of collectors who need the SPs. But I did get a couple of inserts that I'm not collecting. Weeee. The disgust I felt canceled out the automatic joy that comes with pack ripping. And I vowed to myself, as I often have this year, to stick with the older cards. Here are a couple of them: These came from Steve at The Card Chop . After reviewing my 1982 Topps set, I realized I was six cards away from completing it rathe...

I just got back from a few days off in which I went out of town. These days, one of the requirements of an out-of-town trip is checking out the card display at the nearest Target or Walmart. You can have your cheap knicknacks from the generic tourist trinket shack, I'll take my cards, please. This time it was Target in a very frenzied plaza that I know well. Each time I'm there, I feel like I take my life in my hands. Once, at this plaza, I was honked at, cursed at and nearly mowed over by the cutest, youngest blonde in the cutest, reddest car that you have ever seen, and I HAD THE RIGHT OF WAY. I can't even tell you what other stores are in the plaza because I'm forever watching for runaway, self-righteous vehicles. What we do for cards. The card aisle at this Target is not as large as the one near me. But I can count on it for different items. For example, Gypsy Queen had made its way to this Target (it's not at my hometown Target). You could buy loose ...

I've got a packed weekend and I don't know how much I'm going to be able to blog. So I better make this a good one if it's going to sit at the top of the blog for longer than usual. And by "good one" I mean lots of great cards. So that means Dave K. jumps the card package rotation right to the front of the line. Don't get mad at him. Wait until you see the cards he sent. He deserves to go to the front. Send some cards like this and you'll go to the front of the line, too. Dave sent a lot of stuff directly off the top of my priority list. You already saw the 1965 Topps Johnny Podres that completed the team set for me. The rest of the package was a lot set completion stuff, too. But first, let's start with some other interests: First, here's the first card in last year's Bowman Chrome set. That's right, Bowman made Yasiel Puig card No. 1. If you look closely, you can see Mexican traffickers in the background waiting to talk t...