Night Owl Cards

  It's been almost a daily ritual around here the last few weeks to clear snow off the car, out of the driveway, along the walkways. This morning I got up to pull my car in from the street and nearly face-planted because the snow was covering up a sheet of ice that fell around 4 a.m. last night (driving home from work was a bit of an adventure).   Through it all I think I've done an OK job of regularly sending out card envelopes and packages, although I've had to have the conversation with myself over whether it's safe to drive to the post office at least a half-dozen times.   But almost once a week I get there, and I'll be mailing out the latest downsizing box in the next trip. Meanwhile, I received cards (and other items) in response to my last downsizing send . Claimant Mike delivered!   This is not required nor expected but lets see the goods, there is quite the variety.      Starting with an owl card because owl.   It's been awhile since I've...

  This is the giveaway post featuring the extras from my winnings from The Diamond King vintage giveaway on his blog last month.   I'll reveal the cards I'm giving away and the entry instructions at the end of the post, so you greedy grubbies can scroll right to the end if you like.   But I wanted to mention that DK's giveaway also encouraged participants to send cards out themselves. This is something I still do, even after 18 years, though not as often the last 5 or 6 years (still there are cards on my desk right now that are waiting for packaging and sending, as it's always been). But Kevin seemed to strike a nerve as I was the beneficiary of three separate card sends that I believe were related to The Diamond King's request.   First let's see some cards I received from gcrl from cards as I see them . Neither of us needs instructions for sending out cards, especially to fellow Dodger fans, but we'll take any excuse!   Goodies of the parallel kind. Will g...

   I had planned to publish my giveaway contest post of the extra goodies I received from The Diamond King's giveaway today. A nice festive post to kick off the weekend.   But that's been weather-delayed. My backyard helps tell part of the story as it converts into a pond for the second time this winter. A warming trend, complete with howling winds to keep everyone up at night, came through just as I got off of work last night. I'm on no sleep and the gloomy, doomy sky is not ideal for taking pics and a photo-heavy post.   I had planned to display all the card goodies I'm giving away but also a bunch of recent cards I had received from people who had been spurred on by DK's original giveaway. But I can't show dark pictures on such a cheerful post! (This should be exactly the kind of spark that gets me to spring for scanner number 4 or 5).    So that post is pushed back, hopefully to Monday. The sun better be out -- or at least there better be snow on the gr...

  Needed a fun, short post for a Friday and the mail carrier delivered. I'll try to remember this when the post office eats my ESE (ebay standard envelope) order.   A couple of weeks ago I received an alert on one of my ebay searches for the Ron Cey MSA discs. Someone had put up for sale one of the final four I needed. It had been a good while since I had seen one I didn't have.   Unfortunately:   That next word after "Very" is "Scarce". Yeah, OK, buddy. There's no way I'm paying that for an unlicensed disc that looks like a bunch of others already in my collection. Just to confirm that this was a rip-off, I found someone else selling like 15 MSA discs of the same Red Barn variation for $15. There was no Ron Cey in the lot, unfortunately, but I thought about getting it anyway. Sadly, someone scooped it up while I was thinking. (The Red Barn back has two varieties, one with an address on the back and one without. But this seller doesn't mention wh...

  It's the summer traveling season. We're visiting or greeting visitors, yet the cards keep coming. It's sometimes difficult to focus. What do I write about -- this or this ?   But I've finally settled on a couple of player collections, a rare off-shoot of my main collecting goals. I think they're impressive in their own way.   I just added the Topps Now card for Clayton Kershaw's 3,000th strikeout. I just had to get the card and didn't pay all that much for it. These cards are almost nothing to look at, I don't like them any more than I did when Topps Now first became a thing. Just think if Topps created an interesting design for these, it might have all my money.   But that's just the lead-in card for this post. One of my player collecting projects is to get all of Kershaw's flagship gold cards. I wrote about finishing the run through 2022 a couple of years ago. And I finally decided to get back on that project. So recently, three more cards ha...

    My blog reaches around the world and I'm pretty proud of that, but really the most important area for it to reach, as far as my collection, is Southern California.   Thanks to people from across the nation knowing me as a Dodger fan, I've been able to obtain items that usually would be off-limits to me, a lifelong Northeast resident living in a small, remote city. I've received lots of Dodgers items sold exclusively at Dodger Stadium, a place I've only seen in pictures and video screens.   A couple of weeks ago, my all-time favorite player, Ron Cey, was honored as a "Legend of Dodger Baseball," a fairly recent award the organization has presented to former players who have made an impact on the team but are not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.   Due to time constraints -- and nearly 3,000 miles between me and the event -- I couldn't be there in person to bestow my thanks. I knew that the team would be handing out a Cey bobblehead to fans. No matter, I...