Night Owl Cards

  Here in the Northeast, August is still summer vacation. Hearing about people going back to school this week in the south or out west is disturbing and I'm grateful I have only known stepping into a classroom for the first time during September.   However, August is nothing great here either. I've written many times about "August dread" -- I've experienced it since I was a little kid. And with my job for the last 30-plus years, August remains the calm before the storm -- a month's worth of trying to squeeze in every bit of fun you can before the education system saps your will to live.   Also, August, for this house, is a month of less money (the education system pays the bills). I don't cut out card spending completely as I did during past Augusts, but I still need to watch the budget. I balance the lack of funds with the need for cards to dull the August edge -- card by card. Singles are the way to go this month, rather than boxes or packs.   So here ar...

  This very fine card, acquired last week, met a pair of 1969 Topps "goals" for me, not that I officially established them as such.   First, Jack Aker was the last card numbered in the 600s that I needed (#612), so I now have every card from 600-664, which, as you know, are located in the high-number seventh series. This is great progress for a set that as recently as probably five years ago I had no plans to complete.   Second, Aker finishes off the Pilots team set. And since I wrapped up the 1970 Topps set last year, I now own all the Pilots cards that Topps created as far as flagship copies. I'm happy I have a blog to announce things like this!   I was quite proud of finishing the 1970 Pilots, and featured them back on JOTS, Chapter 23 . The '70 Pilots set is a little more appealing to the eye as most of the Pilots shown are actually wearing Pilots uniforms. That's not the case in '69 as the team hadn't made its debut until the 1969 set had been release...

  My first sportlots order of the year is finally here. There always seems to be one straggler card I'm waiting for two weeks after everything else is in. But content is content, it doesn't matter when it appears on here.   Ol' Walt was the late arrival -- almost got to the point where I sent a "I think the mail lost my card" messsage. But instead I get to declare that this card finished the Dodgers team set for the TCMA The 1960s II set from 1981!   This kind of card is about all that I ordered this time around -- stuff that either finished or got me closer to finishing team sets or set sets. The whole order turned out to be smaller than my usual sportlots order. I guess I was trying to save a little cash. The total seems slight, but it still packs a punch with me!     More TCMA stuff, but I'm nowhere near completing these team sets. I'm making a dedicated effort to finish the 1978 TCMA 1941 Dodgers set, which the Kirby Higby card is from at left. Hoping ...

  All right, a quick post to get the bad taste of the last post out of my head.   Perhaps you've been wondering what I've been doing the last month? Yeah, you know about all the work. It's March and all that. But this is a baseball card blog! What else? Sure, you know people are sending me cards. That's plain as day. But what else? What am I -- individually -- doing to help my collection, my hobby? You know, anyone can ride a motorcycle up and down the street as a hobby -- there's plenty of that going on and will be for the next seven months -- but am I doing something actually constructive in my hobby? Am I contributing to my own collection?   I'm happy to say that I am -- even with precious little time.     Just recently I completed the 2006 Topps Dodgers' gold team set. Strangely Jose Cruz Jr. was the last card to arrive. But the '05 Dodgers weren't a desirable lot.   TCDB says Jose Valentin is also a needed Dodgers gold. He's mentioned as a ...

    Completing the 1970 Topps set wrapped up a project that I have been thinking about for years and for a number of those years didn't seem possible. I've wanted to finish all of the Topps '70s flagship sets for a long time, probably since fairly early into my blogging career. That's when I finished all the '80s sets, before moving on to the early '70s, and now I've got 1970 through 1991 complete and ... um ... shhhh ... I'm at a bit of a loss where to go next. OK, not really. I don't have that kind of a collecting mind-set. There are always next projects. It's just that 1970 was a big set and a big project that took years to finish and that was after 1971 took years and then 1972 took years and then 1973 took years. It makes you step back, and let out a big sigh -- "Woooo, that was something . Let me take a moment." All right, moment's gone. NEXT!   I have a little project finished to show here.   The Davey Lopes card up top was t...

  Here's a fairly timely post. Yes, I've been watching the Olympics. It's partly my job and I'm so happy everything is happening six hours ahead of time. Makes things easier amid all the other obstacles I encounter these days when putting together an informative sports section. As I've said before, my favorite summer Olympic sports to watch are indoor volleyball (that beach thing has to go), track and field and archery. Track and field is the only one of those three NBC shows a lot, but I don't have the energy to deal with password hell to get on Peacock and see other sports. Maybe if baseball was actually in the Olympics I'd make the effort. But I like seeing the U.S. rack up gold medals no matter what the sport. And to stay with the theme, I've racked up another gold parallel team set. I wrote a post six months ago about trying to chase down gold parallels for Dodgers team sets for some of the recent Topps sets where I like what it did with the parall...

  Well, that upgrade post from a couple of weeks ago gained some traction! Thanks to that post and the generosity of reader Paul, I've been able to make some progress on an upgrade project that's been in the back of my head ever since I returned to collecting. I've mentioned before that my collecting return was sparked by a couple of instances: 1) Finding Topps' All-Time Fan Favorites cards from 2004 in the toy department of a K-Mart in Buffalo; and 2) Building the 1975 Topps set from a pawn shop downtown. I'd go to the pawn shop (it's long gone, by the way) on my lunch break or in the afternoon on a day off and leaf through the one dealer's card offerings. He had almost the entire set of '75s in boxes on one glass display counter, and behind me was another couple of boxes of vintage cards, mostly stuff from the '60s or early '70s, on another counter. And in the glass display were all kinds of cards I couldn't afford then (but probably coul...