Night Owl Cards

  I deactivated my Twitter account today. Just like that, 12 years, more than 4,000 followers, and who knows how many tweets, gone. Of course it's technically not called "Twitter" anymore and that's pretty much the reason I've left. It actually took almost a year-and-a-half to cut the cord. But when the new owner took over in July of last year and the changes to the site immediately took a turn for the worse, I knew I'd eventually leave. I've been on the relatively new social media app Bluesky for the last 10 months. In the past week, it's seen an influx of collectors from the old site and, for now, Bluesky really seems like Twitter back in 2013, although without much of the crankiness that seemed to come with Twitter even in the good old days.   I know a lot of my regular readers aren't on other social media sites like Twitter or Instagram, etc. So maybe not many here can relate. I admire you folks, really. It sounds nice.   But my involvement in ...

  Probably the best way I can explain the difference between card blogs when I first started blogging, say 2008-11, and card blogs now is the difference in how Allen & Ginter is received and perceived. During the golden age of blogging and A&G (well, the recent incarnation anyway), the release of Allen & Ginter was an event on the blogs. The set was celebrated and there was enthusiasm for the framed autographs, the weird inserts and the non-ballplayers in the set. Sure, some collectors still didn't like it/understand it and there was always a little bit of "what the hell is this card?," but the overall reaction to those cards and the set was, "it's wacky, it's zany, it's interesting! Let's learn about stuff and maybe find a piece of hair from an old, dead, president!" Then, in perhaps the biggest party the card blogs had at that time, 30-40 blogs or more would participate in "Gint-a-Cuffs," a celebration of a set the likes o...