Night Owl Cards

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You're about the cards. So am I

OK, so I get it, yesterday's post was a bit of a curveball with no actual cards displayed. That post was more for me than for you, I like to review my writing from time to time (I've had thoughts about examining my writing style on this blog, we'll see if I ever go through with that). As I've said before, if I wrote nothing except "here are some more cards I got," this blog would have closed down in 2010. I like to mix it up. But honestly, I am all about the cards when I'm not forced to do something else with my time (i.e.: job, chores, duties, responsibilities, various crises, mind-numbing drives). That's almost all of my free time: cardboard. I suspect it's like that for you, too, if you're tuning into this blog. So, what the hell, why not show what cards I've added in my free time, under the radar, while I'm writing about magazines or music or whatever the heck else you didn't come here to see? It's a rather eclectic...

Surprise appearance

I pulled the latest magazine issue of Beckett Vintage Collector out of the mailbox on Monday and paged through it without any urgency. I didn't have an article due to run, the last of them was in the previous issue. So I was surprised about three articles in to see my name on a story about the 1954 Topps set. By golly, I did write that! More than a year ago! I had figured that this one wasn't going to run. That happens sometimes, it happened to one of my articles once before. And being a writer and editor for a newspaper, I understand how that goes. Sometimes the article doesn't fit, there are too many other articles that are more timely or have better art or whatever. Or, heck, maybe the idea just isn't solid. I'll acknowledge that with this one, it wasn't one of my better ones. But I was happy to see it in print. I've now appeared in the last three Beckett Vintage Collector issues, which had never happened before (there won't be a fourth straig...

The final third

Wow, that's a lot of scuffing on that card. It's still surprising what you see once you scan a card. Before getting into the heart of this post, thanks to reader Casey for taking those cards off my hands from the downsizing post. There will be more posts like that, with (slightly) better cards! OK, now while I'm trying to get rid of some cards, I'm still adding cards at a pretty good rate. Lately I've been swimming in 1980s Donruss, which if you knew me in the early 1980s would certainly make you chuckle. I've written about this several times -- Donruss was my third choice in the 1980s from the very moment I first saw the brand in 1981. Topps first, Fleer second, Donruss third when walking to the drug store or deli to find cards. By 1983, I wasn't even bothering with Donruss. The following year, Donruss produced what I've often called "the only Donruss set that matters" but mostly the reason I bought any in 1984 was because I purchased ...

Downsizing begins

I just finished another yearly sort of my Dodgers dupes boxes. It took a long time, as usual. Thanks to giving away some Dodgers cards recently, I freed up some room. But there are still plenty of extras that will probably be with me for the rest of my days. I don't want that to be the case with many of my other cards. I alluded to this during my anniversary post a couple of months ago. I need to downsize. You've seen my card room. It's fairly big. There are two large shelving units that are packed. There are boxes stored on another shelf and in a couple of drawers, and in a closet. I am officially out of room. I don't want to stop collecting, but to keep going, I need to clear out some space. My plan is to remove some/many of the cards in boxes and then I can take some of the cards that are now in binders and shift them to boxes, freeing up some space on the shelves. So what happens to the cards I'm taking out of boxes?? Ah y...

Buying the same card twice

I've written about this card a few times on this blog. It's the first autographed card I ever bought, at one of the first card shows I ever attended back when I was a teenager. It was a pretty savvy move at the time, though I was not thinking of getting a deal or anything like that. Still the value of Koufax cards and Koufax autographs have shot up in the decades since. I'm very happy I have it. But my main focus as a collector has not been autographs, it's completing sets and completing Dodgers team sets. Because of that, this Koufax card has always stood in the way. Since it's autographed, I never considered it part of the 1961 Topps Dodgers team set, though I list the set complete on checklists, like on TCDB. While attending the monthly show in town over the last few months, I've noticed that the one dealer I go to all the time had a 1961 Koufax under glass. Just your regular, "ordinary" '61 Koufax, no signature scrawling on it. I...

Staying on the World Series

Don't worry, not more on the 2025 Series, at least not now. Today I "finished" the 1971 Fleer World Series set, what I like to call the "Fleer Laughlin World Series set" as it was illustrated by artist Robert Laughlin and he was the inspiration for the sets, which he kicked off in 1967, creating and issuing the sets out of his own home. The 1935 World Series card was the last card that I needed, kind of a surprise that it was the final one to arrive at my door. The 1956 card was the second-to-last arrival, more in line with my expectations. I figured either the 1956 or 1919 or 1969 card would be the last one I needed. They were all among the final six or seven but nothing proved very difficult to find, which I appreciate, though part of me is a little miffed that these aren't adored by other collectors like they are by me. Still I should be careful what I wish for (see: my increasing difficulty in obtaining '70s Kellogg's and ...