Night Owl Cards

  Three weeks ago I won a card giveaway from The Diamond King. The winnings were a selection of random Albert Pujols cards in celebration of his recent retirement. The vast majority of cards were from his Cardinals and Angels days, where he spent the overwhelming amount of his baseball toiling. There were also three Dodgers cards, and ... one of them I needed. That's it. And that was all it took for me to enter. I won this card, and a whole bunch of non-Dodger cards. Some maybe wondered why I entered the contest. I'm not a player collector, and I am known for having very few good feelings for the Cardinals and the Angels. What was the point? The note that arrived with my winnings, alluded to these cards that seemingly didn't fit in my collection. Thank you, I shall. So, yes, obviously there isn't a lot here that I collect. But all that means is it's time to work the phone lines! The first thing I did was check the Pujols cards against Cards On Cards' want lists...

(Happy Halloween! The work schedule dictates whether I'll be dealing with this holiday or not. This year I am not. So the day really is happy! ... Well, except for the work part. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 314th in a series): On the years I post on Halloween, I try to have a theme. There have been several over the life of this blog . Tonight, all I have is an orange card. Real original, I know. But at least it's an unusual orange card. This is what's called a "logofractor." I know some of you don't know what that is. But when they were released about a month ago -- boxes contained five packs of regular 2022 Chrome cards and two packs of logofractors -- it seemed like everyone knew. The hype machine was in full spew. Collectors -- you know the ones -- couldn't get enough of them. My timeline was filled with gushing. Some of the cards were selling in four figures. All because of the MLB logo plastered across the image. Topps has...

  So, as I mentioned a few days ago, I opened a blaster of 2022 Chrome in Cooperstown last week. That five minutes in my hotel room was easily the low point of the entire trip -- well, maybe it was a little better than listening to three cronies talk loudly through my dinner Friday night. (Wife: Nothing can be that funny).   I wasn't going to write about it, but something happened in which the cards became quite useful.   My brother and sister-in-law visited a few days ago and my nephew came along. He's the one I've mentioned a couple of times as collecting baseball cards, which is an extreme rarity in this family.   Many years have passed since I first discovered he collected and there were signs that maybe he isn't anymore. But I took a shot since he was under my roof and asked if he still collected. He did. I asked the follow-up question that I never get to ask: "Want to see my card room?"   And so there we were, me and my 15-year-old nephew, already quite ...

  The card blogging world has taken another hit with even some of the blogging diehards of the last 10 years deciding they're too busy to generate regular content. That's an individual choice, obviously, although it forces me to read the vacant card thoughts of Twitter folks rather than the well-crafted and informative prose that has helped shape my card opinions for the last dozen-plus years.   Not even free cards are keeping those blogging tabs open for those folks. Too bad, more for me, I suppose.   I took advantage of another Time Travel Trade from Matt and this is what I received, simply for reading and unloading a few cards I don't need:   I have no intention of trying to complete the 1976 Topps football set. But it is the first set I saw in which I was aware that "there are football cards, just like there are baseball cards." The first football card I actually saw was the 1975 Topps Alan Page. But at the time I couldn't tell you anything about the card...