Night Owl Cards

  The birthday went pretty well. They're quiet these days. The highlight may be a new chair for my desk area where I type these posts. Yay! Also, I did use the gift card (actually two of them) for some current cards. You'll see that in the coming weeks.   After this post I'm taking a few days off from the blog. There are vacation things to do, yes, but also I've been getting a little cranky about blog stuff and that's an indication that I need some time away.   It'll also allow me to rededicate myself to some other topics besides showing off the latest cards, which I've done a lot of lately ... and am doing now.   A series of arrivals have been piling up on the roll-top desk and it's a mess so I'm clearing out. Enjoy the card view.     These were my latest claims on Diamond Jesters' Time Travel Trading. Both probably need explaining. For the Sweetness card, I added it simply because his earlier cards have been so difficult to obtain. Might as we...

  When I completed the 1969 Topps set eight months ago , I was certain that I was finished with trying to build vintage sets. I had been through my share and I wasn't getting any younger and it wasn't getting any easier.   That's still where I'm at -- not going to take on any other set big projects, nope, not doing it, not never, not never again.   Still ...   If I was to build a vintage set again, there is one that makes the most sense -- 1968 Topps is right there.   Now, before you get all "but the Nolan Ryan rookie" on me, here is why this set makes sense to build:   -- It's the next set in the line of complete Topps sets in my collection. You can go in either direction for that. The next set on the front end is 1993 Topps, which is far easier but also holds zero interest for me. 1994 is more interesting but not enough to leap over another year. So, the back end is 1968 and finishing that would wrap up 25 complete sets in a row for me.   -- It woul...

I may be an adult who collects trading cards but I don't like my trading cards to remind me I'm an adult.   Here's how:   Most of the cards I value, almost all my favorite sets and all my favorite players, come from three decades -- the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. These are the cards that produce the greatest memories when I look through them in my collection.   But looking for memories after that gets a little dangerous. The 1990s is full of adult concerns, worries and incidents ... and all that angry music. I can say the same for the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Best just look at the cards and be done with it, don't start dredging up memories, you're not gonna like it.   So when I looked for cards that interested me in the latest Diamond Jesters' Time Travel Trading post, I instinctively picked cards from the '60s, '70s and '80s. I didn't even realize I was doing it. They were just naturally the ones that appealed to me.   '60s     First up, a 1961...

Right now the baseball buzz on social media is the World Baseball Classic. While I'm happy to see people talking about more baseball, I can't get into the WBC more than periodic glances. A few reasons just to make sense of how I feel:   1. We just had two weeks of an international sports event. I'm tapped out. 2. March has enough chaos and energy -- March Madness, right? I don't need more. 3. The WBC seems to run on star power, which really isn't my focus in baseball (Yes, I know the Dodgers have a ton of stars, I do feel conflicted about that).   For baseball all I need is the Dodgers and the other MLB teams that play the Dodgers. I have a difficult time getting invested in any other kind of baseball, whether that's Olympic, collegiate, Banana Ball or any of the many, many non-MLB leagues through history. I've found where my heart will reside forever -- as corporate as MLB may be now.   My collection reflects that -- in the pursuit of MLB-themed sets and, o...

    This 1975 Hostess card of Brewers pitcher Billy Champion cost me 8 bucks -- a little more than 10 with shipping included.   The card contains a small crease in the corner and the pitcher, although featuring one of the all-time names in the sport, was an average performer in the '70s, otherwise known as "a common." But it's a short-print.   The Champion arrived not too long after the card of his former teammate, Robin Yount. The Yount is a short-print and its his rookie card, too, but it cost only a few bucks more than the Champion, likely because it's got a few issues (though nothing that bothers me in the slightest when it comes to Hostess cards).   I've returned to attempting to finish this set after getting frustrated with it last year. I didn't encounter the kind of price bumps I'm seeing with '75 Hostess when I was completing the 1976 and 1977 Hostess sets (1976 completed at the end of 2021 and 1977 in mid-2024). But I've got around 17...

   What would you say collectors who aren't bloggers think of us collecting bloggers, if they think about us at all?   Would they think we're wildly dedicated to the hobby? Probably not. But we are.   Would they think we're wasting our time, writing a bunch of words nobody has time to read anymore? Maybe.   Would they think we're stodgy, focused only on old cardboard (defined as anything before the '90s) and traditional ways of collecting -- buying packs, holding on to base cards. Some would, I think.   But I happen to think that card bloggers have the most varied and interesting collections. Sure, there's a bit of pack rat in all of us collecting bloggers, but those hoarded stacks of cards are so damn fascinating. In this world of specialization -- just take a look at what the grading aspect of the hobby focuses on -- I'm glad my collection is eclectic. It's not as eclectic as some but it's more eclectic than most.   All I need to do is look through...