Night Owl Cards

    OK, now that I've established myself as an oddball in the current collecting landscape -- preferring vintage cards and all -- it's appropriate that I show off some recent "oddball" arrivals in my collection.   This runs the gamut and covers 85 years of trading cards and some of it isn't even cardboard.   Let's see:   Fired-up by my first acquisition of a 1960 Leaf high-number Dodger card in Rip Repulski, I decided to grab another one with this Joe Pignatano. It has a few minor flaws (it was listed as "good," which is usually "good enough" for me), but it still looks great.   That leaves just Stan Williams to complete the team set. Upon landing the Repulski, I received an email informing me that the Williams was available for a reasonable price on sportlots. But I didn't jump on it (I'm rarely financially ready to pounce on opportunities) and it's not there anymore.     Here's a card -- and an owlie greeting card -- that ...

  Back before a virus turned the world and the hobby upside down, I used to attend card shows at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse with my friend Angus of Dawg Day Cards . Even before that, the shows at the fairgrounds would be held at the Horticultural Building, which is a fairly large facility that I had gotten used to as The Place for my card shows as it's where I went when I first got back into collecting all the way into a few years into writing Night Owl Cards. But then the show was downsized into the Science and Industry Building, which is smaller (but still impressive, I'm sure, to those who only know hotel and mall shows). I muttered about it on this blog, but at least I still had a show to go to. Heck, Angus couldn't even get across the border. It had been almost four years since Angus and I went to a show together -- April of 2019. But on Sunday, he was back in town and the show was back in the Horticultural Building, too!  This show was billed as a "Mega Sh...

  I know I've written a lot about oddballs throughout this blog and I've really been spouting off about them in the last six months or so. I probably should change this blog to "Oddball Owl Cards" to make it more appropriate. I've written about them so much that I wanted to do a post on why I like them so much. This isn't a "how-to," in fact, I'd prefer that you didn't copy me and collect these things. It's one of the few kinds of cards where I don't have to beat back the competition. So here are a few reasons why I collect oddballs. (Remember: don't start collecting them!) I shall use a bunch of oddball cards that I just received from Nick of Dime Boxes as visual aids to support my argument. 1. Oddballs are the last chance to collect the players that I truly adore. These are all cards from 1978 SSPC. I have so few of these. I need so many more. Oddballs give me a chance to say hello to the players from my childhood one last t...