Night Owl Cards

  Back before a virus turned the world and the hobby upside down, I used to attend card shows at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse with my friend Angus of Dawg Day Cards . Even before that, the shows at the fairgrounds would be held at the Horticultural Building, which is a fairly large facility that I had gotten used to as The Place for my card shows as it's where I went when I first got back into collecting all the way into a few years into writing Night Owl Cards. But then the show was downsized into the Science and Industry Building, which is smaller (but still impressive, I'm sure, to those who only know hotel and mall shows). I muttered about it on this blog, but at least I still had a show to go to. Heck, Angus couldn't even get across the border. It had been almost four years since Angus and I went to a show together -- April of 2019. But on Sunday, he was back in town and the show was back in the Horticultural Building, too!  This show was billed as a "Mega Sh...

  My latest sportlots order is in and I went the "even I can afford that" route, which is mostly sportlots' reason for being.   Most of these were cheap upgrades and easy team set-fillers. There are a handful that don't fit easily into a compartment other than "cards I want."   I'm not going to show the upgrades other than the '70 Jesus Alou up top (replaces the one I have with tape on it) and the '76 Lopes Record-Breaker comparison:   The card on the left harks back to my collecting days in 1976. It's a nice keepsake but doesn't fit with my modern collecting standards. I've owned a cleaner copy in my '76 Topps set for quite awhile but another version for my Dodgers binder has not shown up at the house until now.   The other upgrades are related to the 1975 Topps set, specifically the minis. I will continue to upgrade '75 cards for as long as I'm collecting. Some of the minis I accepted just to get the set done so now it...

I live close enough to the Canadian border that I know the Grey Cup is presented at this time every year. The 99th version of the CFL title happens to be tonight, featuring the Winnipeg Blue Bombers vs. the BC Lions. I don't pretend to know anything else about the matchup or the league. I used to know a couple of people who were big followers of the CFL. But they've kind of faded away and so has my knowledge of that sport with the really wide field. (As an example of my stunted knowledge of the CFL, I still repeat the old Martin Short Roughriders joke about once a week). However, today seems like an appropriate day to recognize another Canadian institution, even if it's not the same sport. How about some OPC, baseball style??? I received a bunch of OPC Dodgers from 1967ers of Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains . Virtually all of them were from the '70s, which is my favorite collecting decade. So let's have a lookie, eh? Here is the oldest card, from 1971. The...