Night Owl Cards

    In one day, I will be on a long-awaited vacation.   It's my first vacation since Thanksgiving -- and, yes, I know that's a cue for someone to say they haven't had a vacation in 20 years -- but it seems like a long time to me. Also, this vacation actually ushers in "The Vacation Season," which lasts until the sad, sad final moments of August.   During work week-after-work week I think about the things I'll do on vacation and plot out strategies. These usually have to do with the hobby, but also mundane things like shopping for clothes and visiting that flea market I keep forgetting about. It's amazing what gets lost in the rubble of having a job.   Because it's just one week off -- and some of that involves family obligations -- I won't get to everything. But here are some of the things I hope to get to:   1. Send out those Dodger packages   I've promised mailings of extra Dodgers for several folks. I sent out two earlier this week and I kno...

    Eight years ago now, I wrote a post called " My first Dodger card " in which I listed the first Dodger card I pulled each year I have collected -- or tried to since many years I couldn't remember.   The more recent years were easier because I have a blog and document the first packs I open each year, fortunately there have been Dodgers inside of almost every one.   In that 8-year-old post, I wrote that I planned to update it if I could get my brain to remember the first Dodger I pulled in, say, 1982. I also planned to continue the post for future years.   Well, after eight years of silence, that's what I'm doing now. I haven't bothered to update that post with my fresh memories of what I pulled in 1983 or 1989 or 2007. That requires many minutes of quiet reflection and who has time for that now?   So those years are still blank. But I can update the years since 2017. So I'll do that. I know you don't care, but this is for me, because I've been ...

  Yesterday I attended the big show at the state fairgrounds that goes off twice a year. The last time I was there was in September and I obtained the majority of cards from three dealers who are almost always there and almost always get the majority of my business.   I was so confident that they would be there this time that I didn't bother to update my blog want lists or to finally figure out how to access my TCDB want lists on my phone. I just took my hand-penned want list for 1969 Topps and 1979 Topps football and stuffed them in my pocket. If two of those dealers were there, then that would be sufficient.   Well, neither of the two were there. This was a crisis because they are there so often I automatically thought something was wrong. Then I realized just about all my vintage options were gone. The crumpled list in my pocket was useless.   It was time to regroup, though after I did, I walked the show with a lot more uneasiness than I usually do. Not only were...

  It was kind of busy this weekend. I went down for a card show today and it takes quite a bit of driving -- this is the bigger one, instead of the one right in town.   I'll have a full report on that in the next day or two, but I wanted to make a quick observation about some very modern cards for a moment.   The above three cards sit consecutively in the 2025 Topps portion of my Dodgers binder. They are all parallels. But they are not the same parallel.   Perhaps you can tell from the image. I realized after taking pictures that the differences are a little more obvious in the photos than if you're just looking at them with the naked eye. But let's go through the "differences" shall we?    River Ryan is the "Holo Foil" parallel.      Teoscar Hernandez is the "Confetti" parallel.       Shohei Ohtani is the "Sandglitter" parallel.   None of these parallels are numbered, which would have helped narrow things down. As you can...

(Happy National Pet Day. There was a point a couple years ago when I thought there'd never be another pet in the house. I even wrote about it. Today, there's a cat who is about to turn one all up in my business. Knocked over a bunch of cards today. She's officially part of my hobby. Time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 351st in a series):   I reached a collecting milestone yesterday when this 1941 Play Ball card of former Brooklyn Dodgers MVP first baseman Dolph Camilli arrived.   Although I have a modest number of pre-1950s baseball cards, this was the first time I ever purchased one. Everything else pre-1950 has arrived as a gift or in a trade.   I've written many times that I collect cards for which I feel a connection. Those are mostly cards related to my childhood, my adolescence, my first disposable income days and all the way to the present time. If I know the players -- especially if I have seen them play and read about them when they were playing -- the...

  Yesterday I impulsively ordered one of those "megaboxes" for 2025 Heritage from Fanatics. Just a few hours later I received an email from Target: "Good news! 2024 Heritage High Numbers is back in stock!"   Sorry, Target, my budget doesn't allow me to buy two kinds of Heritage at the same time.   This is the mess Topps has gotten itself into by delaying the '24 Heritage High Numbers three months into 2025 while still churning out the Heritage set for this year. I'm on record as liking the 1975 Topps design very much and by extension the 2024 Heritage design, but I can't juggle both. And if someone like me can't, what about those (weirdos) who don't like '24 Heritage as much?   I'm now in the situation of prioritizing Heritage brands, which is something that has never happened before for me. Like flagship -- and Allen & Ginter during the golden era -- I cleared my calendar for Heritage. No other sets issued around the same time m...