Night Owl Cards

    If you visited my card room -- and I still plan to do some sort of blog tour of it someday -- you would note that one blogger has a notable physical presence in the room without actually being there. That's Rod of Padrographs . He has sent me so much quality stuff over the years. I don't just display anything in a spot where I can see it every day but Rod manages to find things that I don't mind seeing every day. Two of the posters on my card room walls -- the Ron Cey/penguins Nike poster and the owls poster -- are both from Rod. There's a Sandy Koufax children's book on display high on a shelf. That's from Rod, too. And, of course, the Ron Cey-signed birthday card greeting that Rod engineered is in full view as well. The cards in my card room are mostly stored neatly in binders or in boxes, not visible unless you open them. But if you did -- and I do -- you'd see Rod's contributions there, too. The number of cards from Rod in my collection grew rece...

  I have been swimming in vintage cards for the last week-plus. I'm helping appraise a collection for an acquaintance and I had no idea he had cards like that. I'll go into specifics some other day on the blog but between this experience and a recent card package I received, I'm even more indifferent to this week's National than I usually am. I don't need it. I've said all these reasons before, but spending a ton of money to spend a ton of money, all while dealing with traffic, crowds and annoying people, is not my idea of fun. I get that people of a certain make-up need to make connections and form card friendships. I'm not into stuff like that much. I'm in the hobby for the cards, folks. And right now, the cards are Right. Here.   Reader Kyle, who has sent me cards prior, gifted me with a selection of vintage needs directly off my want list. It's been so long since I've received a package like this and I've missed the new vintage gifts so, ...

Kicking off the month in style! I've never been so eager to create a new '56 of the Month post. This 1956 Topps Ted Williams card has been on my mind for months. It finally arrived in the mail on the final day of my vacation earlier this week. What better way to close out a fun two weeks! In fact, the timing of the arrival of this card couldn't have been better on a variety of levels: 1. This card is dedicated to my dad. I have been planning to purchase a playing days Ted Williams card since when I first knew my dad was on his way out of this world back in May. No other card would do except for the 1956 Topps Ted Williams. Dad was the one who got my appreciation for the '56 set started when he brought home a brown grocery bag of 1950s cards -- the vast majority from the '56 set -- given to him by a work buddy when I was a young teen. Williams was my dad's favorite player and the Red Sox his favorite team. It's still difficult to comprehend that ...

(It's International Skeptics Day, but I don't know if I believe that. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 266th in a series): I ordered that Sandy Koufax short-print card from 2017 Update today, the one where he's pointing at the scoreboard. It cost me less than a dollar. That's far below the price it was going for back when Update was first released, and I think the thrill of some of these super short-prints of stars of the past is wearing a bit thin. (You could say that for SSPs in general, but let's stick to the topic). The 2017 Update SSPs of legends haven't seemed particularly special to me. The Bo Jackson SSP is the same photo that appeared in a Topps insert set seven years ago. The Ted Williams Update SSP is admittedly fun. It shows Williams in fishing attire standing on his boat, attempting to reel in a catch. The colors are bright. Williams is in action. I kind of wanted this card as Williams has always been my dad'...

My dad's favorite player is Ted Williams. It seems odd to write that sentence in the present tense. Williams stopped playing 57 years ago and, um, except for his head, is no longer with us. My dad is in his 80s and rarely talks about baseball in terms of being a fan. But I know he still has memories of Williams in action and remembers them fondly even if he never speaks of them. One of his favorite baseball books is David Halberstam's "The Teammates," which came out about 15 years ago and chronicles the relationship between Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky during Williams' final days. My dad reads a lot, but not many baseball books, so that's how much he still likes Williams. (I have the book, but I have yet to read it). Williams was known as "The Splendid Splinter," mostly, but also "The Kid," and "Teddy Ballgame". My dad, however, is fond of calling him by one of his lesser-mentioned nicknames, "T...

I've mentioned before that my folks have been known to collect. I'm sure that's why I've collected cards for most of my life. I simply inherited the gene. Although my dad had baseball cards when he was a kid (I believe his mom actually did throw them away), neither he nor my mom know anything about them now. But they know I like baseball and that I like to collect, so every once in awhile they'll throw something baseball-ish my way. "Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't" they sort of say with a shrug of their shoulders. This I thought was fairly cool, and directly from my dad's stash. He was a Ted Williams fan growing up and he kept some Saturday Evening Posts from 1954 that he bought back then. The SEP published a three-part series of an interview with Williams, titled "This Is My Last Year". I'm sure this caused quite a stir. The articles appeared over three weeks in April, right at the beginning of the season. I hav...