Night Owl Cards

  I've been watching the cards from my first Sportlots order of the year trickle in. It seems like it's taking longer than usual. But I'm down to the final two cards that need to arrive. Unfortunately they were supposed to be part of this post. In fact, the plan was that I would have all of the cards I needed to finish the 1985 Fleer set for this post. That was the first mission of the year: complete that set. But I'm still six cards short. One card that I ordered did not show, I received a refund -- Mike Brown, of all players. Two Darryl Strawberry cards were swiped from my cart. Damn player collectors. I think a couple of the others were snatched from my cart, too, but it's possible I missed adding a couple. All of those cards should be easy enough to snag and very quickly, too. But I don't want to wait for those to get this post done. So now you'll have to suffer through two 1985 Fleer posts. Sorry, I'll make it interesting, I promise.   The '85 F...

  I'm sure this happens to everyone, but when I'm shopping for other people, most of the time I'm also shopping for myself.   During the Christmas season, especially if I'm in a store that sells cards, I'll swing by the card aisle if there is any cash left after shopping for the significants.   And when I'm looking for cards online for someone, I find myself throwing a few things for myself in the cart, too.   Sometimes when you're shopping for someone else, you end up with a card just because! I think that's what happened with the Devin Mann Bowman Platinum autograph card up top. It arrived from The Diamond King .   I had snagged a couple of cards from his most recent Flash Freebie (it pays to look at people's vacation photos, you guys) to distribute in my 5,000-post giveaway and -- what's this? -- it's my second Devin Mann autograph card! (Devin Mann is in his second year of Double A in Tulsa, but I'll ignore that now).   These were all...

The workload is something fierce these days, but I'm squeezing in another post because I like you. I received a PWE from reader Chris the other day. He roots for the Braves, big surprise. (Next time you hear about how many Dodgers bloggers and readers there are, take a quick count of the Braves bloggers/readers and be amazed. I'm willing to bet there are more. I can count six off the top of my head). Chris sent a handful of cards. I'll spare you the duplicates. Here is what I needed: I've been getting a good amount of O-Pee-Chee lately, which is a fantastic development. The next time you come across Steve Yeager's 1985 Topps card, look up his 1986 Topps card , too. Topps obviously didn't throw away the film. 1997 Fleer E-X 2000 stands out amid so much late 1990s awful. Awkward brand name aside, you can't go wrong with an acetate cloud display. We're still in the Fleer Skybox realm, with one of the most awkward sets of all-time, 1999 ...

I'm going to a card show this weekend. I think if you ask most collectors, a card show is the epitome of card shopping experiences. I know I certainly believe that. Still, there are others who claim that shopping online is the most productive card shopping experience. And I can't really argue with that after what recently arrived in the mail. I came into a little money last month -- work bonus time -- and I devoted some of it to a COMC shopping spree. I buy cards on COMC maybe twice a year. That's about all the budget will allow. But each time it's a blast and there is so much to choose from that I have a difficult time picking a direction. As always, I adopted the scattershot method, focusing exclusively on Dodgers this time, but all across the board in terms of card style. There were 1976 SSPC cards like Steve Yeager up top and super shiny black refractors ... ... like "Game Over" Gagne here. I just find too many different kinds of cards ir...

During my health funk, I mentioned that I didn't care about trading. It was all a part of being generally ill. You know what it's like being sick. You don't feel like doing anything, even the things you love the most. But I'm afraid I might have scared off a few people. "Night Owl is done with trading!" "Night Owl is retired!" "Have you heard? Night Owl doesn't want your 1991 Donruss anymore!" Well, that is entirely untrue. Except the part about not wanting '91 Donruss. That's always true. No, I may have a problem with pretending that people are breathlessly referring to me by my made-up nickname, but I don't have a problem trading. Sure, it's been crazy as hell around here. Sure, it's still freakin' March. Sure, I've got a new lifestyle that requires I take more time to work out and eat properly and certain old people stuff like that. But I still trade. At my own, methodical, pokey, you'll-g...