Night Owl Cards

  OK, I'm steering this blog away from Dodger cards for a post or two. I'm already getting complaints. 😒 I was running a couple of errands before work yesterday when I stopped at Walgreen's to grab some cookies for someone who has been very good. As I turned away from the shelf, I looked down the aisle and noticed a middle-aged man staring at the toy area, right where the baseball card repacks normally hang. Could there be baseball cards? I had heard a month or two ago that even Walgreen's repacks were being raided by the flippers so I didn't even consider finding cards when I walked in, but what was this guy looking at? As he moved on to something else, I moved in. I was surprised to see three Fairfield repacks hanging on the metal rack. I immediately noticed something skimpy about the box but grabbed the first one (probably should've grabbed the second or third after seeing what was in the first). Now, the reason that the box was so skinny is that these repac...

I have not made a trip to the card aisle in a month and a half. I could have stretched that hiatus to two months, maybe even three, but you know the weird things that Mother's Day makes people do (last year I went to a restaurant that didn't interest me in the least and ate boring food because Mother's Day). I went to Target today because that's where I knew I could find a certain Mother's Day gift and, why not, let's see what the Bowman situation is while I'm there. I didn't expect to find any Bowman. I don't really care about buying it. But if someone is putting a $75,000 bounty on a card found in Bowman, then, yeah, I'll buy a pack. But the Target aisle didn't show any sign of ever displaying Bowman. It was the usual uninteresting assortment of Topps flagship, Opening Day, a few Gypsy Queen packs, lots and lots of Panini Donruss, $20 repacks and abundant football and basketball. I made special note of the team set display: ...

A few weeks ago I told the sad tale of my sister-in-law buying me a repack box for Christmas. She actually unknowingly purchased a box that already had been purchased, pillaged, repackaged, returned -- no doubt for full credit -- and placed back on the shelf. When it arrived in my hands, it did not include the promised autograph anymore. All that was left was some Panini cards from five years ago. My theory is most of those Panini cards were in the repack box in the first place. Because that's what Fairfield -- the repack company -- likes to do. Most people understandably don't want anything to do with Panini baseball so the scammer returned those cards to the box after removing whatever hit was involved. I didn't think much about the dirty deed after writing that post, but that's the cool thing about having regular readers. Somebody else did think of it, and sent me a card to make up for getting scammed. This card arrived from Nick , and it is the most perf...

This is the card-buying season for me. I have time, I have money, I had a birthday. The rest of the year I'll be scrambling constantly, scraping to get by, with people telling me how lousy I am. So I need to appreciate this moment while it's here. Each year, I choose to appreciate it by purchasing cards. I placed a COMC.com order earlier today and you'll see the contents in a couple weeks. To bide my time, I went to the usual retail outlets for cards. The ritual began a couple weeks ago with a blaster of brand-new 2016 Stadium Club. I went to Walmart, grabbed the first box of SC I saw and got lucky. I pulled an autograph. That didn't last long in my possession. It's been traded for a load of goodies that you could see as early as tomorrow. But it made me realize how cool it was to pull an autograph, just from the reaction you get (and the trades that might turn up). About five days later, I was in Walgreen's, looking for junk food for the All-Star ...