Night Owl Cards

I just got finished with a long day of summer vacation stuff and I was looking forward to playing Allen & Ginter Box Buster Bingo over at Crackin' Wax . Unfortunately, the internet was down for like an hour and now I'm beating on the door at CW seeing if they'll let in someone over an hour late, but having no success. So, trade post it is!!!! It was either that or finding something interesting in my latest A&G purchases. And while I look at people who moan about A&G the same way I look at that one person who says "but I don't like chocolate," I will be nice and lay off the A&G for at least one post. I received a stack of Dodger cards from my good man, The Cardboard Don , recently. As you know, he's a Marlins fan. He even stuck this card of Ozzie Guillen -- the current Marlins manager -- in with the Dodgers. I like Ozzie. I've said that before . I know he says stupid stuff. I know he ticks people off. I don't care. I st...

My recent vow to make every trade its own post has been a welcome challenge. It's forced me to find something unique about the cards, or at least one card, and write about it. I like that. It's good for me. Like peas and cauliflower and (*gag, wretch*) beets. But it's also causing issues. I'm in major backlog mode. Both physically and mentally. The mental part is that I've got a crapload of ideas from these cards and they're all lined up waiting for their stories to be told. But I have zero time. Zer-O. You don't know how often I wish I was independently wealthy. Not because of the money. But because of the TIME. I need to become a college student again. The physical part is there are cards from trades stacked up all over in the living room waiting, just waiting for somebody, anybody to, for the love of god,   DO SOMETHING . The line of card stacks is getting longer and longer and longer. I can I hear the stacks crabbing about the stac...

The 1968 Topps set is one of my least favorite vintage sets. Of the 1960s Topps offerings, only the 1961 set ranks lower for me. I've said before that I'm not crazy about the borders, although it did make things easy on the first Define the Design when it was decided we would call this the "burlap set." Burlap won out over "couch cushion," "TV console," and my personal nominee, "grandma's kitchen wallpaper." It's not a set that I intend to collect. Ever. But as a Dodger fan and team collector, I am required to complete every team set that I can. For the 1968 set, I've been stuck on finding the last two Dodgers for quite awhile. I recently decided to do something about that and ordered one of the two missing cards, Walter Alston, online. Even though the photo is on the '68 design, it's one of my favorite Alston cards. That card arrived today, along with some other goodies I'll show later. It also arrive...

I'm not on speaking terms with my mail carrier. Not that he knows this yet, but the next time we see each other face-to-face, which happens about, oh, every four months, I am going to give him the silent staredown. Until today, I had not receive mail in three days. Sunday and Monday, of course, there was no mail. On Saturday, we had a wicked snowstorm in which we received a foot-and-a-half of snow between 4-10 a.m. We received no mail that day, too. Whatever happened to that saying, "neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night ..."? I guess "wicked snowstorm" isn't on the list, huh? So, I was anxiously awaiting the mail today because I knew there were some cards on the way. I did receive three packages, which is fantastic. But I know my mail carrier is holding out on me. The mail load was probably quite heavy after no mail on Saturday (I received a number of other articles of mail today, as well -- bills, magazines, investment notices informing me that my r...