Night Owl Cards

  Here it is. A plain, black, nondescript binder. Another key addition to my collection.   I'm not as creative as some collectors with their binder presentation, with year-accurate labels and every binder the same color, but I do proudly display a collection in binders. They are out in the open where everyone can see them -- not that I'm taking tickets to my card room. The cards that are in boxes are tucked away on shelves or in drawers.   I'm never comfortable stashing cards in boxes. I know that's what I did as a kid, before I discovered binders. But when binders showed up, it opened a whole new world. Cards are a visual medium and binders offer the best way to present a visual theme.   I feel the same way about any collectible publications that I own, yearbooks and programs and the like. But because that's a side part of my collection, I've stored them in bins without much of a thought -- until a revelation a couple weeks ago.     I mentioned last month ...

  OK, thanks to waking up early for a doctor's appointment, not being able to go back to sleep when I returned because of drilling on my street that sounded like a helicopter underground, I had time to assemble a post on the epic Johnny's Trading Spot shipment today! Like previous JTS over-the-top arrivals, it was a mixture of "have-its," "don't-have-its," "oh-wows," "whazzises," " needed- these," "what-am-I-gonna-do-with-these," and "sure-why-nots." This was definitely not limited to cards, which explains the flat-rate box. Much of this, if I'm interpreting the note right, came from Fred, a dealer you should know if you read Johnny's blog regularly. I don't know what came from whom though. I'm going to start with the most important stuff -- the cards -- and work my way through.   THE IMPORTANT STUFF The Kershaws also included some of my daily winnings cards, I've long forgotten what ...

  Card bloggers know the deal: either post about baseball cards or run the risk of having your post ignored.   But we bloggers don't like to be categorized. Some of us collect football cards or hockey cards. Some of us collect nonsports cards. Some of us collect bobbleheads and baseballs and old documents. And sometimes we want to talk about those things, too.   Speaking for myself, I like a lot of different nonsports cards. And I like old baseball publications and magazines. But unless it strikes a certain chord with readers, a post about those things isn't going to get a lot of clicks.   For instance, I recently received a package from Johnny's Trading Spot that include a few baseball cards, but also was filled with nonsports stickers and some cool baseball reading material. All of that stuff interests me. But it's too diverse to interest everyone who reads this. If Blogger offered the option, I'd divide this into three different posts and then depending on the r...