Night Owl Cards

If you were collecting four years ago, you probably remember the Topps Million Card Giveaway promotion. In terms of a marketing ploy, I think it accomplished what it set out to do. It got people to talk about the promotion and Topps. For all of the glitches, hiccups and 1987 Bryan Clutterbuck cards, it was successful with collectors because of the allure of free cardboard. I visited the Million Card Giveaway site quite often that year and even though I moaned quite a bit about unlocking junk wax cards and free cards that weren't really free, I still have some cards that I won and ordered from that site. And some other cards that I won were sent to fellow collectors in exchange for cards that I wanted. In short, the Million Card Giveaway promo worked because it got me to pay attention to it. Since then, there have been similar online promotions each year. And I have paid a decreasing amount of attention to them as each year passed. I can't even tell you what a couple...

A few posts ago, I showed some pictures of "the card room" in my home. It's your typical assortment of card stacks, boxes and binders, binders everywhere. I mentioned in that post that I stack binders on top of each other because I read somewhere that storing binders vertically can warp pages and then warp your cards. But stacking comes with a cost, especially if you're trying to cut corners. I have a lot of card interests and consequently a lot of cards. But I don't have the money or the space for all those binders. So I do two things that I know will cause several collectors to shake their heads. First, I double-bag my pages -- 18 cards per page. I have done this since I first knew there were binders and pages to store cards. I've done this for so long that leaving nine cards to a page to this day seems extravagant. Almost wasteful. The only set that I have not done this for is the 1956 Topps set, because the card backs are so fantastic. If I w...

I have a boss of the very exacting sort. He's not an easy guy to please. You can work your ass off, produce high-quality work on a regular basis, and if there is one, tiny slip-up on one particular day, he will point out that slip-up and not mention any of the fantastic things you or your staff have done over the preceding months. He's also one of those guys who makes excessive and inexplicable demands. And they're coming fast and furious these days. Needless to say, he is not my favorite person. He's no one that I know's favorite person. But I am going to play the part of my boss right now and not even mention that the Upper Deck photographer snapped a great shot of Nate McLouth leaping in mid-air, or that it shows perhaps the best close-up shot of a scoreboard that I have ever seen. What I will mention is that: 1. The ball is not in the photo. 2. The scoreboard is not lighted. So I can only give this card two out of a four possible disembodied hand...