Night Owl Cards

  It's growing more and more difficult for set collectors in this hobby. Let's review:   1. Flagship. You must contend with inserts and parallels filling spots that were once the domain of "base cards," i.e., the cards that complete the set.   2. Heritage (and other spin-off brands). You'll come across inserts and parallels here, too, but also short-printed base cards.   3. Vintage. The demand grew once more people entered the hobby six years ago and the increased cost is fueled by the gem-mint crowd.   When it comes to sets I desire, it seems like no set is immune to the changes of the last 20, 30 years.   No set, that is, except for sets from one particular era: 1986-93. The overproduction era. Junk wax. Nothing about modern day collecting has affected these sets (stuff like collecting copyright and asterisk variations on the back has grown over time but that's easily ignored if you're not into it).   I was reminded of this again when I wrote about m...

  There is a full cart over at sportlots that is just waiting for me to have time and money. Veteran readers know that this is not a great period for spending cash on cards for me, but the wallet loosens by mid-March.   One of the first things I will do when that time comes is click that ship button. The majority of my sportlots order is set needs and in a couple cases will finish off sets I've been chasing the last few years. Happy, happy, joy, joy!   I've mentioned before that set collecting makes the most sense to me, even in this age of Topps playing head games with the few set collectors who remain. While other kinds of collecting feels a little disjointed or scattered, collecting a set comes with a goal: finish the set. There is a defined end. And I've gotta have goals.   This brings me the most peace in collecting and even if that sportlots order feels like it's stagnating, I'm still working on those sets. Not too long ago I finished a TCDB trade with Mokola...

  It's getting to be that time of year when there's no time for anything, I mean more so than the other parts of the year in which there's no time. Through it all, though, I'm collecting cards. I'm always collecting cards. I don't leave the hobby for a few days or weeks or months and then come back to it. My collection is on my mind daily and adding to it -- or thinking about adding to it -- is constant. This is why I have so many card collection projects. If one gets too difficult, I can pivot to something else and still have some collecting to do without any break in the action. But for me -- due to time and money -- I have the time to focus on only one set at a time, particularly if it's somewhat tricky. Right now that set is 2023 Heritage. Yeah, I'm still obsessed, though probably not as obsessed as those people who completed Heritage back in May. I'm down to the short-prints, have been for several weeks now. That means no more buying packs or bl...

  When you have incoming card packages constantly arriving as a blogger, clutter isn't something confined to the stacks of cards, envelopes, notes, those cut-up pages of three pockets and top-loaders and penny sleeves galore, clogging up space on desks and tables and floors. It's also the clutter that you see in your phone gallery and on the desktop of your computer. I often take pictures of arriving cards for future posts and then they sit and stare at me for weeks, I think the little photo icons are actually stamping their unseen feet impatiently, until I finally write about them. I hate being stared at almost as much as I hate to-do clutter. There is also one whale of a box of incoming cards that has no space to land (it's sitting on the floor trying to avoid being kicked right now). So I've got to make way. Here is where I'll start: I received an envelope -- or was it two, don't recall -- from Torren' Up Cards recently. One of the items was an unopened, ...

  As one of many collectors who "took a break," I've been making up for lost time a lot ever since I returned to the hobby and especially since I started a blog. My "official" break was from 1994-2004, but there were minor purchases here and there during that time. Also, I've broke from the hobby during other times, too, particularly when I left home for college. I can probably break my breaks (heh) into three categories. And here they are in reverse order of how much I regret not collecting during that time: 3. 1994-2000 Sure, some of the flashy inserts would be fun, but as someone who has accumulated a lot of Dodgers from that time now, there are so many sets that don't appeal to me at all. Collecting changed in a massive way during this time -- in a way that the hobby still feels today -- and the kind of collecting that ruled at that time doesn't appeal to me. If I collected then, I don't know if current collecting me would like what I had bec...

  Since my first packs of 2023 Heritage back in late May I've bought plenty of the product but have spent very little money.   I purchased just one blaster with my own cash, from Walmart, in early June. Everything else has been "free" due to three key avenues:   1) A stockpile of gift cards 2) A well-timed birthday 3) TCDB transactions   That and $24.98 (plus the price of some stamps) has landed me around 425 cards of the 500-card set. I'm not one to open multiple boxes of a product (or even one box) and I rarely chase current sets anymore, so doing all that in less than three months' time is an achievement for me.   Recently, the Heritage had been arriving so quickly that I was struggling to keep up with what came from whom. Two separate TCDB trades involved Heritage and they arrived about the same time that a couple other blog- and reader-related packages with Heritage goodies showed up, too.   So, what you'll see here are cards that I've shown before, i...

  Some time ago I wrote a post about years with the final digit in common and the cards that were released each of those years. Which was my favorite? For example, this year, which ends in a "3" and all the previous "3" years with cards going back to the '50s: 1953, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003 and 2013. I think a lot of people would make this group their favorite, after all Topps has used the photo-inset theme with '63, '83, '03 and '23.  I don't remember which number I picked as a favorite, because I can't find the post; it happens when you have over 5,000 posts. But I probably picked the 5's. The 5's have some of my all-time favorites: 1965, 1975 (of course) and 2015. I also like 2005 and I once liked 1995 a lot (not so much anymore). And, heck, I did a whole set blog on 1985 Topps. I'm still chasing some of those 5 sets and I'm not limiting it to Topps either. This key Ozzie Smith is a fine addition in helping legitimi...