Night Owl Cards

  Ten years ago I titled a post " Loose Ends ," which was just me trying to provide some updates on some things I was working on -- mostly trying to reassure people that I hadn't forgotten their trade package and such. I'm much less worried about stuff like that now -- I'll get to it when I get to it. The list of to-do things that don't have to do with this blog grows daily and I've given up on "hobby responsibilities" for the most part. Things are much more casual with my hobby, there shouldn't be reason to worry. To continue that theme, here are some things that are going on in my little corner that tell some sort of story but I don't know what that is. Doesn't matter. Just enjoy the scattered approach. I received another monstrous box of cards from Johnny's Trading Spot over the weekend. It will take quite awhile to go through it (although much of the TCDB accounting is done). But one easy item to relay is he sent three Fleer ...

  January for me is a slow card time. I'm recuperating from Christmas purchasing. I'm also gearing up for the first new cards of the season. This is why I'm mad at Stadium Club this year. Releasing a set from last year in the middle of a designated austerity period is not cool. I don't know how anybody has the cash to buy SC and go for flagship in a couple of weeks. Also, every time I see outdated photos from 2023 SC on my screen (Mets Verlander for example), I wonder what the fuss is. Except in the early blog days when there was a big card show to attend in January, I've been content this month to enjoy the cards I already have while buying a card here and there so I don't tip-off the budget. Here is one of those here-and-there cards: Don Money is the 480th buyback in my 1975 Topps buyback quest. This is a card that I stared at on COMC for years. It was a different buyback, of course, and it went for around $12-13, which I am not paying unless it's a supers...

  Sorry about the intermittent posting, work decided to act up the last three days. But it's Saturday now, the perfect time for mindless wonderings of the card kind. I received a nice assortment of 1986 Topps Traded from Cards On Cards a couple weeks ago. He'd obviously jumped at my want list, I know he's always appreciated the '86 set. And he knocked out a decent chunk of my needs. This latest selection got me down to the final 15-20 cards I need for the set (then another arrival today from John whittled that down to the final seven). I don't need to tell you that '80s Traded sets are enormously fun for catching known players in unusual uniforms. But they're also fun because of the airbrushing tricks executed in '80s sets. Airbrushing was still a thing in this decade and not confined to Traded sets either. But for the most part, you can find a greater percentage of painted hats in the Traded set than the regular set. Also, 1986 sort of marks a turning...

(For a brief moment, I thought of starting a non-card blog to document the music I've been listening to, sometimes while writing this blog, but mostly while driving or working late at night. In the last 2-3 years I've really gotten into current music -- not the stuff on the radio/charts -- and it's kind of more fascinating than cards right now. But I'm not great at expressing my musical appreciation or criticism and I already run a blog that nobody reads so that thought disappeared until it popped back into my mind right now. Anyway, time for Cardboard Appreciation, this is the 332nd in a series): One of the best ways for me to discover cards that amuse me is when doing research for posts. That's how I stumbled upon this card, while going through cards for the First Manager Card Invasion post a couple weeks ago. I had never seen it before. It's a high number in the 1962 Topps series, one of the highest. I immediately wondered whether that is the most tobacco s...