Night Owl Cards

(If I was still on Twitter I would have witnessed approximately 78 pack rips of 2026 Topps by now. HAVE YOU RIPPED ANY 2026 TOPPS YET?!?!?!?!? Ignorance is bliss. I don't even feel like checking out the local big-boxes. Time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 364th in a series):   I was reminded of this card recently by The Writer's Journey as he displayed it over on Bluesky. It's a fascinating card for anyone who collected the 1983 Topps set as I did in the year of Michael Jackson.   I completed the set way back in the first year of this blog. But I wasn't actually finished because I didn't have this card. which arrived today.   In 1982, the Angels' Reggie Jackson and the Brewers' Gorman Thomas tied for the American League in home runs with 39 each. That led to the following uncomfortable card in 1983 Topps:   I really don't like three-person league leaders cards (see all of the Topps league leader cards for the last couple of decades), unless the...

  October is one of the busiest months on the calendar. But unlike some of those other always-busy-months (*cough* "March"), October features fun busy stuff that interests me.   Last night, for example, both of my teams were playing: The Bills (yuck) and the Dodgers (yay!). It was a lot, and I saw almost none of it because I was working. Probably for the best. But then I got home and I wanted to see the Dodgers highlights and that "fly out into a double play" that everyone was discussing online. I waited and waited. It got to be 2 a.m. and still no youtube highlights. I went to bed. Fifteen minutes later the highlights were up.   It's just a lot this month and it's been that way for quite awhile. I do miss the younger days when I didn't have as much on my schedule -- or at least that's the way I remember it. I miss many of the elements of those days, which is why I want cards from back then.   Diamond Jesters' Time Travel Trading is a great way ...

  I hope you know that I'm never going to stop writing about '70s and '80s cards on here. To me, that's the greatest era for cards and the most appealing cards. It's the most appealing time period, too, for ... well, just about everything. Then we hit the '90s and pretended everything was the same but knew it wasn't and now we're in the 21st century and nobody knows what a radio is anymore. The beauty of cards is I can collect the same period over and over without anyone getting on me for living in the past (well, some people still might, but that would be rude of them).   I once worried that I was running out of cards to collect from this time but I now know that's absolutely not true and won't be for as long as I'm dragging myself around.   One of the best sources for '70s and '80s cards continues to be Dime Box Nick , which is a bit strange as I'm pretty sure he never set foot in either decade. He certainly understands the glor...

  I'm afraid some collectors have forgotten the symbiotic relationship that has long been a part of the card collecting world.   While flippers and sellers operate in card collecting purely to get what's "theirs," the card blogging world is still an example of the mutualism that has allowed the hobby to thrive for more than 100 years.   Trading is a well-known card collecting standby, even "civilians" can identify it. The opportunity to gain what you want while also giving someone else what they want is one of the beautiful parts of this hobby.   I especially like it when a trade benefits someone who isn't even aware of the trade.   Take a recent envelope received from The Diamond King .     Three of the four cards benefited my collection. The fourth card is already on its way to another collector to benefit his collection. He doesn't even know it's arriving. That's mutualism at its finest.       Here is a card that I received from Jay a...

I've never liked horror movies or comics, I just can't handle them. But growing up, the usual classic monsters were everywhere. Old black-and-white Frankenstein movies would appear on TV on Saturday afternoons, and Dracula always creeped me out. Plus, we had our own cereals with Frankenstein (Frankenberry) and Dracula (Count Chocula) on the box cover. But I just couldn't get into that -- those people monsters. The beast-themed monsters were much more cool -- King Kong and especially Godzilla. I liked watching those movies. And that's why the Wolfman somewhat appealed to me. As a youngster, I feared dogs. But I liked them, too. I wanted to get close to them, but I was afraid. I saw that appeal, that fear in the Wolfman. The Wolfman was everywhere when I was a kid and a young teenager. Of course, Wolfman Jack still dominated the radio, even in the '70s and '80s as oldies stations popped up after his appearance in "American Graffiti." I...