Night Owl Cards

  Two things I've noticed since posting the first half of my hobby box of 2024 Heritage the other day. The first is that out of all the regular player and manager cards I've pulled so far, not one features a posed shot. Those were staple shots for Heritage all the way through last year. Just about all of the base Dodgers cards from last year's Heritage are posed shots. To go from that to absolutely none seems like a decision was made. We were still in posed territory in 1975 Topps, plenty of it, in fact. How I long for a hands-on-knees photo in 2024 Heritage like Robin Yount or Roger Metzger or Tommy Helms. But there's been none to be found. Every photo is either an action shot or a candid photo (both, obviously, were in '75 Topps). I don't know why posed shots have been scrapped. Perhaps Fanatics said "no more fake backgrounds"? If that's the case, applause, applause. But I think the non-posed pix is one of the reasons I can't find anything in...

  For about 90 percent of the life of this blog, I've known around 2-3 card shows a year. Each of those shows were at least an hour away, so I've equated card shows for the past 15 years with excursions. Better make it a day, because it's going to be awhile! Because of this the "monthly card show in town" sounded so nice. I wondered what that was like. I'd be envious of bloggers who "just got back from the monthly card show." -- the monthly card show, because it had been there for awhile, maybe it's always been there. Must be nice.   I remember what I'd think reading those posts about monthly shows. "If I had a monthly show, I'd be there every month, what a wonderful world."   So in the last year or so, my town has set up its own monthly card show. I've written about it. But 2008-22 night owl would be very disappointed. I haven't kept up with the schedule very well. And I actually skipped a show last month, something th...

I mentioned on the last post of 2018 that I received a large box of cards on the last day of 2018. It was a box from reader Jonathan, who won one of my contests last year. I sent him a '75 Topps Nolan Ryan card for his winnings and what I got back dwarfed that Ryan card. Hell, I think it might even dwarf a Nolan Ryan rookie card. It is so full of goodies that I've had trouble figuring out how to approach it for the blog. There's no doubt I will need to break it up into separate posts. There's no way I can cover everything in one post. But how to start? Where do I start? There are Dodgers and oddballs and vintage and Sabres and nonsports ... I need a road map for this thing. Earlier today I was looking through the box in hopes of finding inspiration. I found it. Tucked into the side next to one of the rows of cards was a toploader with the above 1954 Bowman Carl Erskine card inside. I had gone through the box when it arrived at my house. I never saw the Erskin...