Night Owl Cards

  Five years ago I gave a photo tour of my then-new card room. The room made its debut in mid-2019 and by spring of 2020 it looked as I know it now.   I thought it'd be a good time to show another update, five years later. I've long thought of doing a video tour of my card room, but:   a) I am woefully inept when it comes to uploading video, etc. b) I say all the time that I have no time for hobby videos, what makes me think anyone has time to see mine?   So another photo tour it is. And I'm saying right now that the photos aren't great -- too much sunlight in the room and I take the most basic pictures possible (no patience). So here we go!     The bookshelf just inside the entrance. This shelf is a holdover from my childhood bedroom, probably once painted red or blue in that usual mid-70s tribute to the Bicentennial.   This houses most of my boxes for Topps cards -- for sets I haven't completed or aren't attempting to complete. Near the bottom are a ...

    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...

  That's a moment-in-time snapshot of my card table and surrounding other activities in my card room. There's a lot going on in there right now. Not only is it the central hub for cards coming in and cards going out, but there are two large boxes of cards coming in that I'm trying to get myself around. Also, TCDB offers have ramped up again. And, those card stacks off to the left will tell you I'm in the middle of another Dodgers dupes card sort. I try to do this once a year, around September or so. But I skipped it last year so there's even more to do. Also, life has somehow turned what was once a week-long activity into a two-month activity. I don't know how it did that, but it dood. More card stacks. More incoming. There is a lot to do, card-wise. And blog-wise. I have topics in mind that involve research. And little time to do it. When I'm in that kind of crunch, sometimes I dismiss incoming cards for blog posts, thinking that I just can't come up wi...

  So, as I mentioned a few days ago, I opened a blaster of 2022 Chrome in Cooperstown last week. That five minutes in my hotel room was easily the low point of the entire trip -- well, maybe it was a little better than listening to three cronies talk loudly through my dinner Friday night. (Wife: Nothing can be that funny).   I wasn't going to write about it, but something happened in which the cards became quite useful.   My brother and sister-in-law visited a few days ago and my nephew came along. He's the one I've mentioned a couple of times as collecting baseball cards, which is an extreme rarity in this family.   Many years have passed since I first discovered he collected and there were signs that maybe he isn't anymore. But I took a shot since he was under my roof and asked if he still collected. He did. I asked the follow-up question that I never get to ask: "Want to see my card room?"   And so there we were, me and my 15-year-old nephew, already quite ...

  I realize that I am fortunate to have a card room. Not every collector has one, in fact I didn't have one until three years ago, and I've been at this collecting thing for a long, long time. (My first packs weren't in '97 or in '87 or even in '77. Try 1975).   Inside that card room I have a card table and a card desk. I'm fortunate to have those, too. I have two binder shelves and a separate shelf cabinet for some card boxes. All very fortunate developments.   That's why I've been a bit concerned about my treatment of my room recently. Sure, some of the resulting mess was because I was upgrading some shelving (see photo above) and also launched a time-consuming giveaway.     But there's really no excuse for the clutter-fest on my card desk. I need to treat it better.   I know it doesn't look that messy. But that's deceptive. I'm losing cards, you guys, because of the way it looks. The bottom left third of the card desk is reserved f...