Night Owl Cards

    I had another post planned for today, had the cards pulled and ready to scan, but death had other plans. You know the old superstition that notable deaths come in threes? Well how about finding out three well-known baseball figures of my younger days died within a 24-hour period? That's an unsettling ramp-up. It started yesterday afternoon and it's still going. Ken Holtzman. Gone. Whitey Herzog. Gone. Carl Erskine. Gone. All three have meaning in my young rooting life, Erskine the most obvious, though I never saw him play. I'll start with him because that's where I have the most to say.    Carl Erskine was on one of the first five 1956 Topps cards I ever owned. I've mentioned before that when we received a bunch of '56s from my dad's co-worker, my brothers and I split them up and decided that all the cards of each person's favorite team would go to that person (my one Orioles-loving brother got screwed). Erskine arrived with Newcombe, Randy Jackson, ...

 I've completed my Dodger cards giveaway, unless anyone else wants to jump in and claim some cards. I feel bad that I can't find the '92 Topps golds that Crocodile Cards claimed, so if he wants to send me an email with his address, I'll find something to send him. There's another giveaway coming up soon. Even though I'm happy to get some cards out of the house, I'm not sure how healthy these rapid giveaways are for my collection. What I should be doing is drumming up some trades, because, whoa buddy, have trades dropped off over the past several months. It seems like I'm dealing with the same trade people, Bo, Nick, Kerry and a handful of others, over and over. Everyone else seems to have left for TCDB or, I don't know, just don't do trades. March isn't the best time to add another project, but expect to see some random card sends from me in the coming weeks/months. Meanwhile, speaking of Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! , he sent a smatter...

  I mentioned I received a Target gift card for Father's Day with the expectation there would be cards to shop for on its web site. Ha.   I tried almost every day for two weeks to find a box or pack of cards to buy on that site with zero luck. Just a bunch of overpriced Project 70 cards from some third-party seller. I don't need to see those.   Then, suddenly, early last week, I tried again and boxes of 2021 Heritage and Panini Diamond Kings greeted me. None of it was really what I was looking for -- I had my eye on a Series 2 or Stadium Club blaster. But after two weeks of scraps, I jumped at the DK box (I'm pretty over Heritage this year), even though my issues with Panini and Diamond Kings are well-established. Hey, it was something to open. It's not like Target is offering vintage on their site.   This is basically a pack-rip post, about a product with no logos, but considering it's only the second or third time I've opened some packs this year, it's act...

It's pretty well established that I have little use for Panini products. I'm primarily a baseball collector, so I don't collect what seems to be Panini's better efforts in basketball and football. I've written about Panini's baseball short-comings time and again, the unappealing designs, the lack of logos, the inability to present that lack of logos in any kind of pleasing manner (cutting off the tops of heads? Come on), the poorly constructed card backs. Panini has made exactly one set that I've liked enough to collect, 2013 Hometown Heroes. And, of course, that had to be a one-off set because why should Panini continue anything worthwhile? There are exceptions here and there to be sure. Some of the Donruss inserts are fancy and nice. I'm coming around, a little, on its 2014 Golden Age set. And I've always tolerated Panini's Diamond Kings set because it's filled with legend players and they don't seem to be hampered by the inabi...

I mentioned on the last post of 2018 that I received a large box of cards on the last day of 2018. It was a box from reader Jonathan, who won one of my contests last year. I sent him a '75 Topps Nolan Ryan card for his winnings and what I got back dwarfed that Ryan card. Hell, I think it might even dwarf a Nolan Ryan rookie card. It is so full of goodies that I've had trouble figuring out how to approach it for the blog. There's no doubt I will need to break it up into separate posts. There's no way I can cover everything in one post. But how to start? Where do I start? There are Dodgers and oddballs and vintage and Sabres and nonsports ... I need a road map for this thing. Earlier today I was looking through the box in hopes of finding inspiration. I found it. Tucked into the side next to one of the rows of cards was a toploader with the above 1954 Bowman Carl Erskine card inside. I had gone through the box when it arrived at my house. I never saw the Erskin...