Night Owl Cards

  I tend to underestimate the size and depth of my collection. When someone says I should set up a table at a show to sell cards, I instantly scoff. I could never have enough cards that could interest people enough to buy them!   That's the way I'm built. I'm not a natural boaster and generally feel inadequate much of the time (though I'm getting better the older I get). I always assume others have more/are better. And that's the way it is in the card world, too.   None of that's true, though. I've been receiving cards from people around the world for more than a decade. It's obvious I have a collection that is both impressive and unique. But I also know there are people out there with far more cards, far more impressive cards, far more expensive cards than me.   I don't know any of those people, I don't think. The one collector that I know who comes close to that -- in my mind anyway -- is Johnny of Johnny's Trading Spot . He's the only ...

  Sometimes I think to myself "what's a little guy like you doing big things like that?" I've always been a little guy. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but when teachers used to line up kids by height in the 1970s, when we were traveling to the cafeteria or gym or wherever, the small guys went in the back. I don't know why they put us in the back. Were there dragons in the hallways and they thought the tall kids could fight them better? I kind of liked being in the back. I didn't grow a whole lot after that. And sometimes I'd fall into that trap of thinking that short guys can't do what tall guys do. There's always that reminder that some women automatically rule out dating any guy who is less than 5-10. And you're automatically disregarded in some sports if you're short. Or at least you have to prove yourself a lot more. But I've done fairly well for a short guy. Got the family, the house, the position of responsibility and...

Still running on fumes here. But I need to get to a couple of team set completions that have been complete for, oh, a couple of weeks now.   A little bit ago I received a bunch of Topps Series 2 Dodgers from gcrl, very helpful, because it kept me from doing dumb stuff, like buying Series 2.   One card, though, was not included and I needed it to finish the full 2023 team set (inserts, etc., excluded of course).   Mike of Dillard's Dugout stepped up and said he had the card for me and sent it in prompt fashion. Sorry it's taken me so long. He was probably wondering if the mail ate it.   There it is. All intact and no snack bites. It's been sitting on my rolltop desk through a couple of family excursions and a few day trips. Just waiting. Like a good boy. So, thanks, Mike, for completing my Topps team set. I'd show all the cards from the team set here now but why do that when I can go to work for 10 hours! This card was under wraps for so long I ended up receiving a ...

  My daughter was good to me for Father's Day and sent a blaster of 2023 Heritage as a gift (just as I requested!) I enjoyed opening it on a very relaxing day and I even pulled a Dodger card, which have been amazingly scarce in my Heritage openings this year (yet 12 Rangers and 11 Pirates total). This rookie card of the slumping James Outman gets me down to a just a couple more non-SP Dodgers in my team-set quest (Trayce Thompson and the Betts-Buxton card). Between this card and a few Heritage Dodgers that I received from Johnny's Trading Spot recently, I've noticed that the Dodger cards in 2023 Heritage are pretty damn dull. This feeling is a holdover from last year's Heritage and the Heritage before that. Virtually nothing exciting from the Dodgers, just a lot of bat-on-the-shoulder poses. This is particularly unfortunate this year because there were some pretty good action shots for the Dodgers in '74 Topps with Ron Cey, Claude Osteen and Joe Ferguson (I'm a...

    I've been sitting on quite the variety of packages from the past week. It's so much that I'm a little confused about what to show next and how. I brought down three different packages/envelopes for today's intended post and then returned two of them to the card desk. Then I returned the third one to the card desk and brought down a different one -- mostly because there was so much indecision that I am now running out of time. So, what I have for you is my latest prize winning from Johnny's Trading Spot , and, yes, I will be counting down my favorites. Don't roll your eyes, go watch hockey if you're not interested, just do everything in your power to make sure the game ends in regulation. All right, Johnny did very well with this shipment. Out of the nine items he sent, seven were new to me. 9. 2003 Topps Julio Urias, foil parallel I have three of these now. I don't know why. Are they double-printing foil parallels? 8. 2022 Topps Archives Mookie Betts...