Night Owl Cards

  I've mentioned many times that I returned to collecting current cards in 2006. So that makes it 15 years I've been back.   I probably didn't make the wisest choice with the year I chose to come back, it certainly can't compete with the first year I collected cards, which was 1975. But sometimes collecting chooses you, not the other way around, and I couldn't resist those rack packs in Walmart in '06.   I did end up buying quite a bit of 2006 Upper Deck that year, too, but I never saw Allen & Ginter (didn't know to look for it). Same deal with Heritage and Fleer and Turkey Red and anything besides what I was trained to look for way back when: FLAGSHIP.   So, I was stuck with one, super-flawed set upon my return. Foil everywhere, possibly the most foil-tastic (and therefore unreadable) Topps card set ever. It's just not a great design, even though the look of the cards still gives me the warm fuzzies because I was back in the game, baby!    Look at t...

For the third straight year, I met Angus of Dawg Day Cards for the trip down Route 81 to Syracuse for a card show. Time sure goes fast when you have someone to talk to during a long trip. Angus may collect football and I may collect baseball, but we have other things in common besides knowing what it's like to shovel a lot of snow. Both of us like music and that was the discussion point when we weren't talking cards or sports. Also we both were on a budget for this card show. It's a shame that nobody wants to pay two veteran collectors to hunt for cards at a card show. We can do a bang-up job on that. So both of us were in a similar frame of mind: find some deals. The cash I brought came from a mileage reimbursement at work and a portion of a state tax homeowners refund that happened to arrive a mere few days before the show. I'm happy to say that card shows -- or at least this card show that I've been going to for over a decade now -- are much more accom...

I have found myself in possession of modest number of Reds cards, and it's totally my own doing. As a Dodger fan, there isn't a lot to like about the Reds. The first year I followed the Dodgers, they finished in second place, 20 games behind the Big Red Machine. The following year, the Dodgers finished 10 games behind the BRM. I did not enjoy them. The Reds have been in the World Series three times since I knew what baseball was. I rooted against them every time. And there was also that 1995 NLDS. Nasty stuff. That all seems like ancient history now because Cincinnati hasn't been relevant as a baseball team for a long time. The Reds and Dodgers no longer share the same division, and all that animosity that had been built up since the '70s is slowly trickling away. So, when Red Cardboard announced he was giving away surplus Reds cards, I had no problems entering and adding Reds to my collection! After all, I don't just collect Dodgers. I collect sets and ...