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 ...

  I recently returned to my plan to chase down the Dodgers I'm missing in old Heritage sets.   In almost all cases these are short-prints, and I quickly lose enthusiasm after seeing prices and drop the chase for months before coming back to it. But this time when I visited, the prices weren't bad -- it's just there weren't a lot available.   I added the Kaz Ishii short-print from 2004 Heritage. Look at him roll his eyes at those short-printing ways.     I also added another famous Japanese pitcher for the Dodgers, maybe you heard of him. Heritage short-printed his card, too, in 2005 Heritage.   While I was searching for other Heritage SPs from this time period I happened across an insert from 2005 that I didn't have, so I threw that in my cart and called it a night.     This card recognizes his two home runs on the final day of the 1956 season that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers.      I knew the photo used on the front seemed ...

  It's super-rare, 15-plus years into this hobby online, to receive a trade package in which every card erases a need. It requires -- on the part of the sender -- attention to want lists, having inventory that a veteran collector requires and, most of all, a bunch of luck. Even with all the transacting Cards On Cards and I have done over this time, in which we've gone over each others wants repeatedly and again, the dupes will slip in. It's part of the process. This is why when I received a package from him a couple of weeks ago, I was floored that every single card was needed, a 100 percent success rate. That's hard to do! Turns out I miscalculated a bit, but I'll get to that. First stuff I NEEEEEEEEEDED .   This is how long this send has been sitting on my card desk. These two cards were Dodger set team needs when I received them. Since then, I've completed the team set. The Ohtani-Betts card arrived today as the final want (big surprise that was the last one...

I read something interesting yesterday in Sooz's card collecting newsletter . Sooz's better half, a Texas Rangers fan, was discussing the 2020 Topps Series 1 disaster in which a single Rangers card appeared in the base set. He was updating that misfortune now that Series 2 is out and noting the number of Rangers in Series 2 (and that they all weirdly feature a new stadium logo). He doesn't buy that Topps was saving the Rangers for Series 2 to get the stadium logo on the cards and neither do I. He believes instead that Topps simply forgot to add the Rangers into Series 1. Apparently -- and this is the interesting part that I never knew -- when Topps begins to fill its flagship set, it starts with a checklist of each team. It then fills the checklist, starting first with the rookies . Then, it adds veterans and newly signed players. The rookies come BEFORE the veterans. And this may be why only Rangers rookie Nick Solak showed up in Series 1. Topps began with the req...