Night Owl Cards

I will buy just about any single card for a dollar. Even a card from 1990 Donruss, in the right situation, if I was desperate enough, I'd have no problem handing over a buck. A dollar, I think, is the perfect match for a wanted card. I don't live in a land of dime boxes, so I don't have some skewed view that every card should be 10 cents. Ideally, I'd like the average to card to be maybe a quarter. But in this era of online sales, slick modern cards, bells and whistles and vintage all over my want lists, I think if I could pay a dollar for most of the cards I want, I'd be happy. Then there are the times when spending a dollar seems like a steal. This card arrived for the price of a dollar, actually it was under a dollar but I had to factor in shipping. This is the short-printed Sandy Koufax card from 2017 Update and it was going for Too Much Money back when Update was released during the fall. I fought off the urge to buy it then and I was rewarded. Thi...

(It's International Skeptics Day, but I don't know if I believe that. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 266th in a series): I ordered that Sandy Koufax short-print card from 2017 Update today, the one where he's pointing at the scoreboard. It cost me less than a dollar. That's far below the price it was going for back when Update was first released, and I think the thrill of some of these super short-prints of stars of the past is wearing a bit thin. (You could say that for SSPs in general, but let's stick to the topic). The 2017 Update SSPs of legends haven't seemed particularly special to me. The Bo Jackson SSP is the same photo that appeared in a Topps insert set seven years ago. The Ted Williams Update SSP is admittedly fun. It shows Williams in fishing attire standing on his boat, attempting to reel in a catch. The colors are bright. Williams is in action. I kind of wanted this card as Williams has always been my dad'...

You would think that it would be quite easy to find night cards in new products these days. Most games are at night, it's not difficult to shoot them anymore. But actually, it's not that easy to find them. Or, rather, it's not that fun. My guess is at least half or even a majority of the cards that appeared in 2017 Topps flagship are night cards. But that's all it is, a guess. That's because for several years now, Topps has issued cards with closely-cropped images. You get the player and that's it. I've discussed this many times prior. Backgrounds are in short supply. And backgrounds are what makes a night card. For night cards, I look for lights, the night sky, tip-offs, but also the aspects that make a night card fun. I could determine night cards from closely-cropped images based on the lighting on the helmet or the uniform, but that's not fun and doesn't really announce itself as a night card. So I haven't bothered much with night ...

So it's the day after Christmas and it's time for card collectors to show what kind of cards they were gifted. As you know, I am not related to Dimebox Nick's dad or Breakdown Gavin's in-laws. There's no card sugar daddy anywhere. Some of the loved ones try but the best they're going to do is venture into the neighborhood card aisle. That's what my wife did and since there has been virtually nothing baseball-wise in card aisles since June, I wound up with three fat packs of Topps Update. That's 108 cards of mindless pack-opening fun, which is basically all I expected because we all know there was nothing of substance issued in 2017 anyway. After opening the packs, I was staring at a stack of meaningless cards. Almost nothing worth noting. I did double my Aaron Judge card count, which means very little now that I can no longer sell these for the price of a house. This card was odd, just because of the title. Meat? Really? I pulled...

Think back. I mean way back. Way, way back. Back when Joe Girardi was the Yankees manager. Back when the Cubs were World Series champions. Can you remember that far back? Barely, right? It was so, so far back that I didn't even own a Cody Bellinger card. That's how far back we're talking. The first Cody Bellinger card came to me at about the midway point of July. And I was so desperate at that time for Bellinger on cardboard that I actually ordered one of those Topps Now cards of him. Flash forward five months and I'm beating Cody Bellinger cards off with a stick ... er, I mean, welcoming them gratefully into my home. This is why you simply need to exercise some patience when baseball sensations are involved. The cards will show up. Oh, will they ever show up. This Cody card arrived at the nest from GCA of The Collective Mind . It's actually one of the Bellinger short-prints from Topps Update. How many Bellinger short-prints there are in Update I do...

Back in 1998, Leaf released a set called "Rookies & Stars". I wasn't collecting then, but when I found out about the set years later, the title annoyed me. "Rookies and Stars"? That's rather elitist. The No. 3 starter, the fourth outfielder, the set-up reliever isn't good enough for you? As a set collector, there is nothing more distressing to me than a set that ignores the "common" players that are the foundation of baseball. "Rookies and stars" may put fans in the seats, but they're not what makes the game go 'round. If you don't have nine players on a diamond, 24 dudes on the bench, you're not going to win squat, no matter how many "ooohs" and "aaahs" you get from someone jacking a home run 500 feet that accounts for exactly one run, same as an RBI ground out. However, it's fairly obvious that many people don't think the way I do or even collect the way I do. Because if there...