Night Owl Cards

It's November, so I've begun transitioning 2019 cards to their ... um ... final resting place. That means taking them from the stacks of 2019 cards that have built up on my card desk since last winter and moving them to boxes or binders. Spoiler alert: only sets that I particularly enjoy get the binder treatment and none of the 2019 cards will see the inside of a binder. I always start with 2019 cards that I know I will not purchase again in a moment of weakness in the retail aisle. And, sadly, because I do love the brand, Heritage is getting that box treatment right now. While inventorying what I have of '19 Heritage, I discovered something that I hadn't noticed, nor had read anyone mentioning: 2019 Heritage marks the return of full names on the backs of Heritage cards. Topps has displayed the full names of players on the backs of their cards during two distinct periods: 1952-57 and then the early 1970s -- 1970, and after a two-year break, 1973-75. That me...

A few weeks ago I told the sad tale of my sister-in-law buying me a repack box for Christmas. She actually unknowingly purchased a box that already had been purchased, pillaged, repackaged, returned -- no doubt for full credit -- and placed back on the shelf. When it arrived in my hands, it did not include the promised autograph anymore. All that was left was some Panini cards from five years ago. My theory is most of those Panini cards were in the repack box in the first place. Because that's what Fairfield -- the repack company -- likes to do. Most people understandably don't want anything to do with Panini baseball so the scammer returned those cards to the box after removing whatever hit was involved. I didn't think much about the dirty deed after writing that post, but that's the cool thing about having regular readers. Somebody else did think of it, and sent me a card to make up for getting scammed. This card arrived from Nick , and it is the most perf...

Since we're " stealing " post titles now, I figured I'd steal one myself, but put a little bit of a twist on it. I grew up in a household where "hate" was considered a terribly strong word reserved for the most evil of entities, and the word "stupid" was banned altogether. I considered this "stupid" because the kids I knew were saying words far worse than "stupid," although I can see my mother's point all these years later. However, that hasn't stopped me. The word "stupid" has appeared on this blog in 288 posts. The word "hate" has appeared in 775 posts. I hate like hell that I've used the word "hate" that much, but I'd like to believe that the vast majority of hate references were in regard to my opinion of cards. Not that this makes sense to my mom or anyone who considers these things merely cardboard pictures of men, but "hate" seems to do an adequate job hig...

I am a participant in one of those team dump trades -- what I like to call an "everything must go" trade -- with Pat at Hot Corner Cards . He is offering team lots in exchange for all the Tigers one can muster. I'm still mustering Tigers, but Pat sent the Dodgers a long time ago, so it's about time I acknowledge something about this deal. Whenever I receive a whole mess of Dodgers sight unseen, there is always a weeding out process. With an abundant number of Dodgers already in my inventory, I need to take the time to figure out what cards I really need. All of this usually happens behind the scenes. So, I figured this time, why not put it in front of the scenes? I'll let everyone in on determining which card I need from the piles of Dodgers I received! It can be one big What You Need party! Sound like fun? No? Sorry, I've drafted you anyway. So what I'm going to do here is show six cards each and let you determine which one I need. Let t...

I've never been a fan boy. I do have my favorite teams and players, but I'm not a person who follows his team or player rabidly, commenting on every game or play and following the every move of all of my favorites. First, I don't have that kind of time. Second, I just can't get that into flawed human beings who I don't know. You'll never see me soliciting an autograph at a game, standing in line for a signing, or calling up a sports talk radio site. As a teenager, I refused to call my favorite players "heroes." They weren't my heroes. They were my favorites. The two players who received that "favorite" designation at the time were Ron Cey -- of course -- and, when Cey was foolishly traded away, Pedro Guerrero. Guerrero was a burgeoning superstar from the moment I saw him in the back of my Dodger yearbook as one of those 1978 prospects. The amount of hope and promise that Guerrero brought to the early '80s Dodgers helped me fo...

All right, I'm already regretting the title to this post, and I'm still not happy that I'm going through with writing this at all. But my job on this blog is to document my collecting journey, and this is a part of that. Just know that this is a small, small, small inconvenience in what is a wonderful asset to the hobby. Teamsets4u.com  made my want lists what they are today. I haven't even accessed the site fully -- I know there are many other sets listed there that I need to add to my want lists. But if you scroll through the entire page of my want lists, it will take you a little while anyway. I owe that to teamsets4u. It is an invaluable resource for team collectors. Every set painstakingly separated by team. It's an amazing undertaking. All that patience, all that time. I find periodic errors, which are perfectly understandable given the massive number of sets issued through the years, especially since the early 1990s. There is no way you couldn...