Night Owl Cards

I believe we just received two feet of snow in less than 24 hours. It's difficult to measure because lake effect snow doesn't sit still for a second, but it's been going nonstop since overnight last night. We're in a bit of a break now, but I expect it to start up again soon. All of this is nothing new around here, but it's still a pain cleaning off cars, shoveling driveways, driving when you can't see 20 feet in front of you, only to get to work so you can get an email lecture from the boss. Fortunately, I have yesterday to get me through today. Because yesterday was my lucky day . I emphasize "day" because, as you know, I'm a night owl. The best things usually happen for me at night. But on this particular day, I got up early (mostly to get ahead of the coming storm) to run a few errands. And one of those errands was using one of my Target Christmas gift cards. Weeee! I wanted to get something different with this gift card. But when I ...

After so many years of writing this blog, I think people have a pretty good idea of what I'm interested in when it comes to cardboard. But what do I like right now? What am I obsessed with right now? What's in my head right now? (OK, that last question may get a scary answer). For that, you'd have to take a look at my latest COMC order. Plenty of people send me cards that I like. But only a COMC blog post guarantees that you'll see cards that I really, really, really like at this exact moment in time. Isn't that exciting? Well, it is to me. These are cards that I received with some remaining Christmas money, because I always get cards for Christmas whether someone buys them for me or not. Let's see what was in my head at the exact moment I pressed SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grabbing pesky inserts from sets that bug me. That means you, Archives. I still need regular old base Dodgers from 2015 Archives, as well as that stupid SP base ca...

Have you ever stopped to consider your greatest collecting fear? Maybe you haven't. It's not exactly anything you want to think about in what's supposed to be a fun hobby. Fear should never enter any room filled with cards. But if you reflect for a moment, I'm sure you can think of the big fears that most collectors have, even if they exist only in the deep dark recesses of your brain. The two biggest ones I can think of are: losing your entire collection in a fire, or having no one to take on your collection after you die. Happy topic, right? But those terrible fears are too distant for me to keep me up at night. I operate on a more day-to-day level because it's more realistic. And for me, the greatest realistic collecting fear I have is that I will have some significant hole in an easy-to-complete set that I thought was completed ages ago. This is why it drives me crazy when I discover some card that I needed that I think I should have had already. Fo...

So I've been doing this blogging thing for probably too long. Way back at the beginning, I made a trade with a collector in England. I couldn't get over how cool that was -- that someone, first of all, collected baseball cards in Europe, and second, that you could swap cards with someone who was that far away. Well, it's been years since that first transaction with Jack Plumstead and there have been several others since . And the thrill is no less diminished. In fact, since it's been a little while since John and I last exchanged cards, this latest deal may have been as exciting as the first. It strikes you right when you see the outside of the package, which is like no other package outer-covering that comes to my home. The words "documents enclosed," from a package mailed within the United States would either freak me out or send me into a state of depression. But not with something overseas. Overseas, "documents" means cards! Of course, ...